I just saw the new 5 minute video from my friends and life coaches, Johnny and Lara, and had to share it with you.

It’s so inspiring, and so relevant to what many people are going through right now!

I thought that if they have helped me to grow and expand in so many different ways and levels of my life, they might help you too!!

Johnny and Lara’s Amazing Video!

You see, we all feel overwhelmed sometimes. We work and work, but bills keep coming and debt keeps piling up – many people feel like they just can’t seem to get ahead. Good news! Johnny and Lara have discovered the secret to living a truly wealthy life and reducing your stress over money. There’s a way to grow your wealth so you can truly afford the finer things in life – and have time to enjoy them.

You won’t believe what Johnny just bought Lara! CLICK HERE TO SEE THE VIDEO

I was so impressed that I’m sharing this video with as many people as I can – and I hope you will, too!  It’s just five minutes long, and I promise, it may just be the best five minutes you’ll ever spend!

With Love and Light,

Gaby

P.S.  I’m serious. You have to take five minutes to watch this video. Five minutes – you can do it during a commercial break! Just click here.

Think back to a challenging situation from your past. Have you noticed that even as time goes by – perhaps you even change your environment, your location, and the people around you – most of the time that challenging situation manages to come up over and over again? Have you ever noticed a pattern in the situations?

I ask these questions because I have experienced challenging situations throughout my life that tend to repeat themselves. Even after several years have passed, I have moved to different countries, and the people around me are totally different than the people that created my environment ten years ago, I seem to experience the exact same challenges. A few years ago, I didn’t even know there was a pattern in the circumstances or what was creating this phenomenon. Today I have a clear idea of what the answer is and this is what I want to share with you.

Throughout my professional career, I have worked for a variety of companies – all within the same industry. I always found very similar stressful situations (and ones that drain all my energy). I always thought that, in some part, it was the type of industry I was in. But I also thought that those situations were somehow created by my circumstances and the people around me. It took me several years and a lot of emotional ups and downs to realize that, throughout all those years and all those situations, there was only one single common denominator: ME.

Thinking the way I was, I was always blaming others, putting the responsibility on other people or external conditions and circumstances. What happened was that by being negative and resisting my own awareness, I was unconsciously attracting more of the same without even noticing. The energy and vibration that I was sending out was very low, and I attracted the same low energy into my life. The pattern then kept repeating itself.

When I came to the realization that I was the only one responsible for what was happening in my life, I started to wonder why that was happening to me. One of the greatest pieces of advice that my life coaches have ever given me is this: “The quality of our life is determined by the quality of the questions that we ask.” When we are asking from an unconscious place, we tend to ask questions like: “Why me?” “Why this is happening to me?” Such questions, at their essence, have a very low energy and vibration and immediately place us in a victimized position.

However, since the Universe matches the energy of the type of questions we ask, the solution is simple. Instead of asking low vibration questions, we need to learn to ask, what Rev. Michael Bernard Beckwith calls, “Powerful Questions.” He teaches that these types of questions will take us out of the “unconscious” paradigm that we are living and will allow us to grow, expand, evolve, and, therefore, manifest a more powerful life. He gives some examples of powerful questions, such as: “How can I grow and evolve with this situation?” “What quality am I to cultivate to shift this circumstance in which I find myself?” “What skills am I being called to develop?” “What is it that I am to discern in this situation?” “What opportunity is here that I’m not grasping?” “What good is here that I am not seeing?”

Learning to ask these Powerful Questions will give us the capacity to use so-called negative or challenging situations as an opportunity to go deeper, to search ourselves, to stop placing blame on external circumstances, and to take responsibility for your life.

I invite you to start practicing to ask yourself more Powerful Questions anytime you experience a challenge in your life. Welcome each challenge and practice as you go. This will activate the impulse to establish a higher vision of your life!

With Love and Light,

Gaby

I know it is a little bit late to wish a Happy Valentine’s Day to all of you…. but why not? The Celebration of Love could be any day, right? So here it is…. Happy Valentine’s Day! Thank you all for your love, for your friendship, for your unconditional support, for taking the time to read my blog, for your inspiration, and for sharing your positive energy with me. May your life be full of love and joy throughout this week, month, and the rest of the year!

Since this is going to be the last post of February, I want to use this special occasion to share my insights around love with you.

Love is the one thing that everyone wants more of in their lives. We might not know exactly what love is or how to define it, but somewhere in our hearts we know that love is the most important thing in our lives. For me, love is ENERGY. It is the energy that is our core essence and when we are immersed in it our lives are suddenly transformed. I have asked myself several times, “Why are we always seeking love?” I believe that happens because our search for love is our soul’s reach for that profound and sublime sense of connection. We know that love – and being in love – is the best thing that we could ever experience.

Although we are all seeking it and it is all we long for, love is an area that most of us have received little or no instruction at all. The general assumption is that we know how to love, how to feel loved, and how to keep it in our lives. I have discovered that no matter what our circumstances are, we all can learn to love, to be loved, and to attract true love to our lives. We can all re-condition ourselves to love. And that is exactly what I have been doing this last year. In the process, I have learned there are a few (but very important) things we need to do if we really want to find true love in our lives. But the most important one is this: LOVE YOURSELF.

Loving yourself is not narcissism, nor egotism, or stubbornness. Self-love is a real and solid internal grounding from which you become your Authentic Self. Self-love helps you set your boundaries to be very clear about who you truly are and what you want in life, and it will be your guide in your efforts to love others as well.

Learning to love yourself is a life-long process. It is not something that happens in one day. You have to work it at every minute; but the more you practice it, the more attention you give to it, the more you continually remind yourself of how important you are, you will eventually arrive at a place where it will become automatic.

The most important part of this process will be when you realize that the path of self-love is a spiritual path. When you learn to not only see, but feel yourself as one of the threads of this vast, caring, and beautiful Universe, and when you really embrace that connection, then you can say that you are truly loving yourself. It will be only from this sense of connectedness from which you can truly love others.

For over a year I have been working on reconditioning myself for love. It took me around 8 months (and the help of my love and life coach) to realize that all this practice was actually the act of pure SELF-LOVE. I always thought that in addition to all that I had been doing, I also had to do something else to really learn to love myself. I always thought that the work that I was doing was about “changing” myself and not about “loving” myself.

I believed this up until that glorious and inspirational moment when I began to understand the truth. This is where my shift began. I started to feel different. I started to enjoy life in a completely different way. I even started noticing that my heart was longing and calling for something bigger, for something with transcendence. After two months of Divine searching I even discovered my purpose in life: to be a writer!! And here I am, living my spiritual path, feeling and experiencing my sense of connection with Spirit, with this vast Universe and humankind. It is only through self-love that I am guided to more love.

I invite you to begin this powerful and beautiful journey to self-love by taking one single step today. For you, what would that be? Write it down, post it where you can see it, and then take action!

With Peace and Love,
Gaby

A couple of months ago I watched a movie called “Funny People.” Yes, it is a comedy, and even though comedies are not my favorite genre, I thought there was a good message behind it. This movie – along with a wonderful book I just read and having celebrated Valentine’s Day just last week – gave me the idea of writing about this subject: Getting Real.

In the movie, the main character finds out that he is about to die and therefore starts getting in touch with the people and places that matter the most to him; he gets in touch with his heart and his emotions, and he starts to be who he truly is. Months go by and, after taking a new medication, his doctor tells him that the medicine had a positive reaction on him and the sickness was eradicated…. he gets to live! He gets a second chance! He was overjoyed, but only for a while. Even though he tried to stay in touch with his heart, in just a few days he fell into the same old patterns and finally lost his inner connection. It is when he starts feeling all alone again that he realizes that something needs to change; he realizes that this time he needs to change and that real change will take some time.

After I watched this movie I began questioning myself: “Why do people only Get Real when they are faced with tragedy, with sickness, with death?” “Why are we rushing all the time trying to get or be somewhere else when our present moment – giving our full attention to everyone around us – is the best practice we can do?” “Why do we tend to live just on the surface and don’t take the opportunity to connect with people at a deeper level?” “Why not be Real every day of our lives?”

Valentine’s Day was approaching and my sweetheart and I were having one of those good and deep conversations we often share. This time the conversation was about Love. We were trying to find a way to celebrate this special day in a different way. We wanted to use Valentine’s Day as a way to celebrate our love but this time at a deeper level – with some special commitments that could help bring us even closer. So for a while we were talking about this idea of Getting Real, getting in touch with our deepest feelings and emotions, and letting them be the sail that guides our boat through the ocean of our lives. At the end, he shared with me a book that he read a while ago and believed would be very appreciated, and very appropriate, for this conversation .

The book is called “Tuesdays with Morrie,” and is written by Mitch Albom. Perhaps you have heard of it or you have seen the movie. Maybe you have already read the book, or maybe you have not. But if you haven’t read it please, please, please do!

I can’t describe to you how deeply this book has touched me. It made me laugh, but it also made me cry. This loving story teaches us those things we ought to know already, but have somehow forgotten. I won’t give anything away – you will have to find out for yourself. The only thing I can promise is that this book will change the way you see your life because the subject of the book is about just that: The Meaning of Life.

So this is my invitation for this week: if you want to Get Real, if you really want to find out what this truly means, make the commitment to go to your favorite bookstore, go to the author’s website, go to amazon.com, and GET THE BOOK. I promise you won’t regret it; you will enrich your life through every page and the teachings will stay with you forever!

“The truth is Mitch,” Morrie said, “once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.”

With Love and Light,

Gaby

It was two years ago when I first felt and understood the true meaning of Responsibility, and it was about 8 months ago when I first learned a new way to look at it. Let me tell you the story.

Around this time of the year in 2008, and after a serious conversation with one of my sisters, I decided that I needed to take control of my own life. I really needed to understand what was going on in my life – why I was feeling unhappy and unsatisfied in the relationship I was in (yet again) and why I was always angry, negative, and losing my temper toward my circumstances; that was not how I wanted to be! I needed to understand why I was always living under someone else’s expectations – which I was never able to meet – and why I was never able to define who I was and what was what I wanted in my life.

It took a lot of commitment, time, energy, and resources to discover, but I realized that unconsciously and throughout my entire life, I was placing the burden of responsibility on someone else, anyone else, but myself: I blamed my parents, my mom’s mental illness (and its role in my family and in my life), my religion, my friends, my coworkers, my bosses, the superficial society I was living in (and, therefore, the inadequate men I met unable to connect with me at a deeper level), etc.

When I realized that the responsibility is not in others but within ourselves – a shift began to happen. I suddenly started placing myself at a 180-degree view and started to be the witness of my own experience. I began to be the observer of my own mind and emotions and began to truly understand that I was the one and only person responsible for what I have been attracting to my life. This was just the beginning of my awakening process.

It is important to understand that with every thought we have, with every word we say, with every feeling we experience, and with every action we take, we are co-creating, with Spirit, our own lives. Every minute, hour, and day – 100% of the time – we are choosing how we want to live. It is up to us if we want to do it consciously or unconsciously. It requires effort, focus, and attention from our part to become mindful of the situations and aware of our internal process. The practice of meditation can accelerate and propel this process.

For many years, meditation was knocking at my door. And even when I felt drawn to it, I never paid too much attention to it; I never did anything about it. It wasn’t until I read several books that mentioned the power that meditation can bring to our lives and help us become more peaceful, joyful, and grounded, that I made the commitment to practice it on a daily basis.

One of the many benefits that meditation has brought to my life is the ability to respond appropriately to situations – coming from my Superconscious Self rather than reacting from my subconscious bad habits. It helps me to constantly work on replacing negative attitudes with positive attitudes. I can’t say that I am a master of it. I am human. I’m still learning and practicing it every day.

This was the new way that I discovered to look at responsibility, and it has been helping me tremendously in my day-to-day activities, interactions, and relationships!!

Here is the practice: In any given situation that requires your response, take a moment to think it over instead of reacting from habit. Your responsibility lies in becoming aware of the unique response that is called for in that particular situation. You can ask yourself, “How can I respond appropriately to this particular situation?” Sometimes your response will call for actions, and sometimes it will call for restraint. Your responsibility will involve a conscious response rather than an unconscious reaction from your habitual tendencies. This requires mindfulness to see the situation clearly and learn to separate your responses from the situation itself.

We all have the ability to respond to everything, everyday, and in every moment. Your own internal guidance, your intuition, that little voice that calls for the Good in you, is the one that will give you the answer on how to respond…. Just be open to listen to it!

With Love and Light,

Gaby

Last week I spoke about honesty, and to be honest with you, it took me a while to finally sit down and write about this week’s topic: Compassion. I even considered not writing about it at all. But at the same time I was aware that I had to do it. There was something there, a message, that had to be explored and shared with others.

I have been thinking a lot about it all week long. I have asked myself, “What does compassion really mean?” and, “Have I felt compassion in my life for something or someone?” I searched for the meaning of compassion, reading numerous articles on the topic, and I found them very interesting and insightful. I have also heard a lot about it throughout my life. But I honestly never understood its meaning fully – until now. And I want to share with you my personal experience around Compassion.

I consider myself to be a very sensitive being. I have noticed that when I see a child in need, a person with physical disabilities, an elderly person requiring some assistance, a woman that has been physically abused, or a poor man working hard to feed his family, a subtle feeling arises in my heart – a feeling of kindness. So while I was wondering if I have felt compassion in my life, a clear “yes” came to my mind.

But there was something within me that did not feel completely satisfied. I questioned myself over and over…. “Was that feeling real? Was that feeling really what we call Compassion? Why did that feeling come only with people who were ‘in need’?”

This last question led me to think about the feeling of compassion in terms of all the people around me: people that I live with, people I interact with on a daily basis (for example my co-workers, my friends, my siblings, etc.), and even people that I come across randomly (at the super market, the dry cleaners, etc.).  Do I feel compassion for them as well as for people “in need”?

And by “Compassion” I don’t mean feeling sorry for someone. What I mean is a feeling of kindness, of respect, of being non-judgmental, and of understanding that each one of us is different; we all come from different backgrounds, with different baggage, and we all have a different time and pace to become aware and enlightened. We are not the same, and that doesn’t mean that we are wrong or that we are not on the right path!

This is exactly what was not letting me feel satisfied with my answer. And it has been particularly difficult for me to understand – to really get it. But while I meditated on the topic of Compassion this past week, something shifted within me. I noticed that I started to be a bit more open to other people’s timing and pace. I noticed that I have been more respectful about their opinions. I even caught myself, while I was waiting in line, sending love to the people around me and seeing the beauty in them instead of judging them, for whatever reason….

I personally believe this is the Real Compassion that we all need to practice more often. We are all connected; we all need each other to grow and expand and find meaning in Life.

So let’s practice this week being more compassionate with the people around us. Practice being more open and respectful with their opinions. Try to really listen to them. Try to see their beauty within. And try to find at least one lesson that you could learn from those who challenge you the most… I promise that by doing this you will understand them better and will feel more compassion for them.

With Love and Compassion,

Gaby

I have had two types of experiences around honesty, one that brings me into alignment and the other that takes me out of alignment. I have noticed that when I think about something that I want to do, when I feel it is the right thing for me and I go for it, even when other people might disagree with me, I get a feeling of complete satisfaction, of happiness; I really feel proud of myself, even when sometimes I don’t get the result that I was looking for. On the other hand, I also have experienced that even though when I think about doing something and I really feel that is the right thing for me, I end up doing the opposite. In this example my action was not in alignment with my thoughts and feelings. And by doing this, the feeling that I get is one of complete dissatisfaction, unhappiness, and disappointment.

I have asked myself several times, “how does this happen?” What I have noticed and learned is that, for me, this happens for two reasons: The first reason is that I rushed to make the decision. I didn’t take the time to really get centered, to make the connection within myself to be able to make the right choice, the right decision for me. So what happened was that I was out of balance and, therefore, ended up doing something I honestly didn’t want to do. The second reason is that sometimes I have unconsciously sought other people’s approval. The need to be liked, to be loved, or to fit in a certain circle was stronger than what I wanted to do and/or say.

A few months ago, I had an important decision to make in my life and I was having a difficult time with it. Through the process of introspection, I realized that I was not being honest with myself. Internally, there was an unconscious battle between what I felt was right and best for me and the fear of what other people might think or say about me. When I became aware of this, I was completely shocked by how strong the need of approval was leaning me toward a decision that I didn’t want to make! I became very aware of the feeling of fear I was experiencing, and recognized that it was going to require a huge amount of courage to stand up for myself and to speak my truth. I realized that I had a choice that I didn’t have before: the choice to change that harmful pattern. This new awareness allowed me to make a new decision, a conscious decision – one which, in turn, led me to take a new action. And that’s exactly what I did!  And what was the result? The end result was the creation of a wonderful feeling and a constructive (and beautiful) new habit!

By being honest with myself I could feel a deep sense of joy, of peace, confidence, and power that I never ever experienced before. I felt truly authentic. A subtle and internal feeling shifted within and it will remain with me forever.

As Rev. Michael Bernard Beckwith stated on his book Spiritual Liberation, “Each of us is in reality training. The length of time it takes for us to wake up to the Real is our own responsibility.”

Our personal development is a life-long process, but you can take responsibility and start it right now. Today, I invite you to meditate on the core value of Honesty. I invite you to get Real and ask yourself these questions: What does Honesty mean to me? How honest am I being with myself? Am I looking for other people’s approval on my day-to-day decisions? Do I have the courage to stand up for my self and speak my truth?

I hope these questions help you start your process, your awakening process, as much as they have helped me on mine!

“Our lives improve only when we take chances – and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves” ~ Walter Anderson

With Love and Light,

Gaby

Freedom is a birth-right that we, as human beings, have. It is inherent in our nature and nothing and no one can take it away from us. We think we are free just because we can move freely; we can go anywhere we want; we can do what we want; we can wear, say, and think anything we want; or because we don’t live in the middle of a crisis, a war, etc.  But what about the war that goes on inside of us, in our minds, with our own thoughts, with our feelings and emotions? Do we feel really free when the negative thoughts, the self-sabotage thoughts, the negative feelings like anger, fear, sadness, and worry take over and won’t allow us to move forward because we think they are so much stronger than us? Do we feel really free when the self-created stories that go around in our heads don’t let us trust in ourselves, go for what we want, think BIG, or have dreams simply because we don’t believe in ourselves enough?

Real freedom lies within us. As Thucydides, an Ancient Greek historian quoted, “The secret of happiness is freedom. The secret of freedom is courage.” And what is courage but the quality of spirit that enables a person to face difficulty without fear and to use the heart as its source.

When we are courageous, when we make that connection with what our heart wants and make the decision to do it, and go for it, we are sending a message to the Universe that we trust, believe, and love ourselves more than anything else and it is in that precise moment when real freedom is born. And when we feel free to do, say, think, and feel anything we want from that inner space, true happiness is ready to blossom.

You may be wondering, “yes I want to be courageous, I want to be free and experience true happiness, but how or where do I start?” Here is my suggestion: start on the small every-day decisions. All of us are faced with both small and big decisions throughout our days, and throughout our lives. But I believe that starting with the smaller ones truly prepares us for the big ones. Practice by making quick decisions. Focus your decision on what makes you FEEL good. Most of the time whatever pops into our minds first is really what we want, what we like. But so often we get distracted with our thoughts question if that first idea is really, really what we want.

So start there. When you go shopping, when you have to decide what to eat, be aware of the first thing that pops into your mind – and stick with it. Eventually, you won’t hesitate anymore, it will become natural. By doing this you are laying the foundation of courage. And when the time comes for you to make a big decision, you will be prepared and ready to trust in yourself and to stand in your power, confident that your decision is the right one for you and that it will set you free. We have the power to be free, we have the power to be happy.

Trust me when I say it. I have done it and I have experienced it. And if I can do it, you CAN DO IT!

We all can find many many reasons to celebrate every single day, it all depends on us. We all have the capacity to see the circumstances in our life as opportunities. We just have to be open to see them.

Every morning is a new opportunity to celebrate. The celebration of Life! What a blessing to be alive. What a blessing to be healthy, to be able to breathe, to see, to hear, to feel, to move freely. How many times we take all these capacities for granted? This year is a new opportunity for you to start to be grateful. Make that resolution now, start from there, just by being grateful… that’s the smallest but most important step toward real Happiness.

Each one of us, every day is confronted with situations, some of them positive, some of them negative. The positive ones are always easy to accept and welcome. The challenge is when we are faced with negative or hard situations on areas of our lives and we still try and do our best to get the most out of them. It is through them when we can challenge ourselves, our own minds, our own thought patterns to try something different. We can start by trying to change the negative thought for a positive one, to change a complaint for an positive affirmation and a smile, to release our negative energy through conscious breathing. All these are little but extraordinary ways than can help us see, even in the challenging situations, an opportunity to celebrate. They are not easy, but they are worth the try!

Perhaps you have a new project to accomplish, a new idea to develop, a new goal to reach. All these are great opportunities to celebrate, celebrate our inner capacities that were given to us from birth. I believe that we all are spiritual beings living a human experience. We all have the abilities, the capacities within ourselves to do, accomplish, reach anything we want. All we have to do first is to have the courage to believe it, believe in ourselves, in our own strengths. Once we believe it, anything is possible. You can expect miracles!

Do you have a family, a partner or significant other, or maybe just friends that show you their love and appreciation in you life? What a great reason to celebrate! The celebration of Love! What a blessing to have love and support, to know even with your eyes closed that they are there for you anytime you need, when you feel happy, or maybe sad, when you go thru the ups and downs of life, when you just want to be listened, or maybe when you just want to be…. Take some time this year to write some thank you notes to them, and let them know how important they are for you, the role they play in you life, the qualities you admire in them. This simple but powerful act could be a life changing for some of them… you never know!

Take the risk today and make this year a year of change, a year opportunities, a year of Celebration!