Welcome to Healing From Within, Your host Sheryl Glick author of The Living Spirit Answers for Healing and Infinite Love is delighted to welcome Marie Delanote author of Acorns to Great Oaks: Meditations For Children with tools to help children cope with real life.
Sheryl and her guests share intimate stories and experiences in order to look beyond ordinary human nature to find an inner more eternal source of wisdom and awareness of our true complex nature as spiritual beings living a physical life. Understanding energy and life with a more illuminated perception is the way for creating health prosperity and enjoying greater love and compassion for ourselves and others and to heal the world.
Marie thinks back to childhood and remembers how shy and sensitive she was and how she saw spirit and knew the world in layers of reality. Marie was born in West Flanders Belgium and grew up with her mother and three sisters. Her early years were dedicated to music (played double bass) Interested in spirituality Oracle cards Witchcraft Entities Palmistry Reiki etc. She met her husband when she was twenty three years old and eighteen months later was expecting her first child. They relocated from Antwerp to Southern Belgium in a quiet rural farming community and she ran a Bed and Breakfast while holding down a teaching job in local schools. Her second and third children were born. In 2011 she relocated to the UK…and on to amazing happenings.
Marie tells us a bit about her new book Acorns to Great Oaks. She shares that feelings are really our GPS and alarm system. They tell us everything about what’s happening in our life. When experiencing overwhelming feelings or anger, irritation …it is our feelings saying, “Stop you have been thinking negative thoughts.” It is important to teach children to stop and acknowledge their feelings. Why am I feeling this way? And then use meditations/visualizations and other coping mechanisms to get to a better feeling place, to lift themselves up before spiraling down. Let me explain this further and show you the link between our thinking and how we feel: When you watch TV and it’s a program which you shouldn’t be watching…it’s violent and unpleasant. How do you feel worried uncomfortable upset….What will you do? Change the channel. So when you change the channel and you find your favorite program how will that make you feel? Happy excited….So what you see on the screen makes you feel a certain way…This is the same for your mind, what you think/the pictures you make in your mind make you feel a certain way. So when you feel anything but happy, it is your body alarm telling you to change your thinking. I then teach children very easy to apply exercises meditations visualizations to make them feel better.”
It is important to feel good vibrations: energy Everything vibrates energy. Not feeling good anger, irritation vibrates at a low level, the same as sickness unhappy people unfortunate circumstances. Happiness excitement vibrates at the same level of other happy people, health and fortunate successful circumstances and your dreams…Like attracts like This is the Law of Attraction. What you think and pay attention to will manifest.
There are many benefits of teaching our children especially sensitive children meditation.
Benefits from meditation include: boost their self esteem, sleep better, strengthen their immune system, increase their attention span, handle stress better, have better control over their emotions, increase their mental strength, enhance creative thinking.
Some delightful amusing exercises from the book and CD that rely on fun and visualization techniques that enhance creative thinking mental strength and self-esteem include:
Ladybugs that eat away unpleasant situations and feelings
Dragons that show how good change can be
Fairies who suck away angry energies with hoovers
Colors to breathe-in and make them feel a certain way
Angels who will remove the backpack of worries from their shoulders
The exercises in this book teach children to have personal power and control over how they feel and react to situations and to know that happiness lies within them and does not come from the outside world. Exercises may be performed in as little as 5-10 minutes
Readers may learn from reading Acorns to Great Oaks or listening to the CD that we are very powerful beings fully in control of our own life choices and how we respond to events. Ninety nine point nine percent of children and ninety three percent of adults are not aware of this truth. Too often children are fully dependent on others or people think they have to undergo everything thrown at them not knowing they are responsible and in full control of everything happening in their life. Marie’s meditations/mindfulness exercises/coping mechanisms are there to teach children independence and hopefully teach their parents the same.
When feeling sad/angry/upset/nervous/unsettled…What can you do? The book gives 22 options. As we are creatures of habit, we should teach children emotional management now and see them blossom into happy healthy adults. This is the way to change the world. At the base of depression anxiety self-harm and eating disorders lays trapped emotions. We can work on the prevention of this.
Sheryl says….”What we all need to learn or simply remember in order to be better parents and to help children grow into the loving souls is we must not burden them with our fears worries opinions and restrictions and teach them to pay attention to that inner small voice that encourages them to be bold and courageous.” In my book The Living Spirit I wrote, “When I first began following my spiritual path and indeed everyone’s path is a spiritual path, one of the first things I noticed was that all of my teachers regardless of their other methods—always spoke of the need to raise our vibration in order to receive information from a spiritual dimensions. Did they mean I needed to use a hoola-hoop and continue to move my energy in circles? It took me a while to realize that for one to raise their vibration, he or she must eliminate negativity, selfishness, fear and an overall attachment to the physical world. A higher vibration means contemplating and practicing a higher love of self and others. We must, on a consistent basis, speak from the heart and soul, rather than from the ego or mind. This brings us back to the issue of discerning what beliefs are ours and what we have picked up from others. There are many ways to learn what works for us. Quieting the mind through meditation, music, nature walks, dance and movement, sex, gardening and enduring relationships will help us to do this. Interacting with others who are interested in raising their own vibrations, using their God-given talents, and serving humanity is another excellent way to transform physical energy and merge with spiritual energy.”
You tell of a huge adventure happened when your fourth child was born weighing only one pound and you describe the incredible story in your first book, The Healing of the 1 lb Baby. Marie realized in time that what seemed as an insurmountable problem was the way for her to further develop her own spiritual gifts for healing and her child grew beyond the challenges to live. Many challenges it seems are programmed into our life itinerary in order to give us opportunities to ask for help from Spirit and to acess our own amazing divine inner essence for living with courage and love.
We didn’t get to discuss the following but in Marie’s book she describes her discovering that two of her children were on the Autism Spectrum and indeed so was she. How could she go so long without being diagnosed? Some of the challenges Marie faced prior to this diagnosis were having a past of depression, anxiety, eating problems .Being on the autism spectrum and being a mother of four with two of the four on the same spectrum Marie devoted her full attention to mental health and finding ways to deal effectively with the symptoms of this condition. Marie wrote, ”When I saw my boys struggle with all overwhelming life and emotions, I knew I had to help myself first before I could help them. I started meditating and then developed visualization exercises. It completely changed my life. I was in a very unhealthy mental place so if I was able to turn things around anyone else can. At the roots of depression self harm, eating problems and many anxieties lays trapped emotions. Mental health problems are on the increase and holistic methods may provide relief without undue use of medications. When the problem is addressed rather than symptoms being simply controlled real improvement and success ensue leading to greater productivity health and happiness.
Marie and Sheryl suggest we begin to self-investigate what makes one happy or unhappy: know more about our feelings dreams and goals: remember our childhood dreams and talents and stop agonizing over failure or the past, while accepting life on its own terms as perfect opportunities for you to grow and expand. When negative thoughts float into your mind and on any given day almost fifty percent of all thoughts we receive from the energy around us are negative simply-Do Not Engage…Gently push them away and wait for better thoughts, ideas and inspiration to come in. Be open to possibilities for learning sharing and giving love, be an example of good will for the world. Like all things we can create either good health or poor health, through fears or abuse of our bodies and through our thinking or actions. Enjoy everything music reading, friends, nature, travel, exercise, food, and being part of life without expectations or judgments. Life will flow to you from the thoughts you send out into the world. Make them positive and follow through on your intentions to be the best you can and to live as fully as you allow yourself to.
Readers of Acorns to Great Oaks will take much away with them. The exercises in this book teach children how to have power and control over how they feel , what’s happening and where they want to be in life Exercises may be performed in a short time making it easy to incorporate them into daily life or a longer learning session. They rely on fun visualization techniques that enhance creative thinking, mental strength positive thinking and self-esteem in order to master the mind body and spirit.
In summarizing today’s episode of Healing From Within we have seen how the challenges in Maries life lead to great self-awareness and ways to help herself her children and others realize their personal power within: a spiritual energy or connection to All that is. In knowing this simple but important reality it becomes easier to deal with feelings that often overwhelm or disturb our true nature which is to be loving kind and peaceful. When we find this out and concentrate on just being with people, in places and enjoying what is best in our individual and collective search for harmony, balance, peace and love, we truly have learned the greatest lesson of all—We are spiritual beings having a physical life and have the resolve perseverance and consistent approach to creating our best Self and our most creative life journey.
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