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	<title> &#187; Spirituality</title>
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		<title>I&#8217;ve Been Emotionally Abusing The Internet?</title>
		<link>http://rachelrofe.com/ive-been-emotionally-abusing-the-internet</link>
		<comments>http://rachelrofe.com/ive-been-emotionally-abusing-the-internet#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 09 Jul 2010 01:32:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Psychology/Personality Development]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Spirituality]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://rachelrofe.com/?p=895</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The following post may seem &#8220;airy fairy&#8221; to you, but I think there&#8217;s a really important point in it so I&#8217;m going to make it anyway. Before I get into it though, let&#8217;s get one thing out of the way. I&#8217;m pretty positive you feel energy to one degree or another. You might not say [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The following post may seem &#8220;airy fairy&#8221; to you, but I think there&#8217;s a really important point in it so I&#8217;m going to make it anyway.</p>
<p>Before I get into it though, let&#8217;s get one thing out of the way. I&#8217;m pretty positive you feel energy to one degree or another. You might not say it in those words, but I&#8217;m sure you do. Have you ever seen a couple and known something was wrong even though they weren&#8217;t talking? Or maybe knew your significant other had a bad day before they said anything? Or maybe you just didn&#8217;t want to be around a certain someone because they gave you a &#8220;bad feeling&#8221;? Or looked at a picture and knew 2 people were in love even though you obviously couldn&#8217;t hear anything? Or maybe you&#8217;ve been happy just by being near someone (with or without them saying anything)?</p>
<p>I hope you&#8217;re remembering at least one example. <img src='http://rachelrofe.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif' alt=';)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p>OK, so with that out of the way, I&#8217;m going to tell you about a couple of cool things I learned about recently. I realize some of these things might be too &#8220;out there&#8221; for some of you, but I&#8217;m going to post anyway because for the people who DO know what I&#8217;m talking about, I think there&#8217;s a stellar message. <img src='http://rachelrofe.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p>See, I recently learned some awesome lessons about energy on ALL levels (not just with living things).</p>
<p>One of my first experiences with this was at a psychic meetup group. This particular session was on psychometry, the act of holding things and then feeling the energy from them.</p>
<p>There were all types of people at this meetup group &#8211; teenagers, men,  women, people of varying ages, etc.</p>
<p>We had each been asked to bring in 2-3 different objects and then we held onto each others&#8217; stuff. We had 3-5 minutes of silence while holding each object and we&#8217;d use the time to write down all the feelings and thoughts we got from the objects.</p>
<p>Despite the differences of the people who came to the group, many of us kept getting the same feelings from the same objects. It was pretty fascinating. For example, some of us touched an accordion. We all felt a male energy owning the accordion, and all <span style="text-decoration: underline;">on our own</span> instinctively knew that the guy who owned it was normally shy but was completely at home playing this accordion in front of lots of people. We saw he had inherited it somehow and that it meant the world to him. The accordion had a &#8220;proud&#8221; energy to it and we all really liked it.</p>
<p>There was a ring that we all felt lots of laughter and joy around. The ring felt so good to me that I didn&#8217;t want to put it down.</p>
<p>Another item we touched was a watch. I got such a stern and unwelcoming energy from it that I put it down immediately.</p>
<p>Although I already suspected it, this experience really made me understand that every physical thing has some kind of energy to it.</p>
<p>The group also made me think of when I was talking with <a href="http://www.MonaGrayson.com">Mona</a>. She mentioned that she mentally &#8220;talks&#8221; to the stuff in her house, asking where it wants to be, what it wants, etc. I know it&#8217;s crazy, but it <em>does</em> work. Try it &#8211; if you&#8217;re open-minded enough you&#8217;ll almost always instinctively get answers.</p>
<p>After those experiences I was fully on board with the idea that both people and physical things have an energy to them. There was no need to convince me.</p>
<p>I had a coaching call the other day that made me realize that it goes beyond even that.</p>
<p>It all started when I got an email about one of my businesses. It looked like there was yet again another problem with it. As soon as I read about the email I instantly felt deflated, exhausted, and irritated. The business seemed to be awful to me from the start.</p>
<p>(Now that I have the gift of hindsight I realize the first time a problem ever came up I got irritated instead of looking at it as a fun challenge. I guess I&#8217;m used to things coming easy to me. As more problems accrued, instead of a little irritation, I became angry, resentful, and annoyed with it.)</p>
<p>In turn, the business wasn&#8217;t the best to me. Random problems I never even knew could exist would pop up. Opening my email up every day was like opening a Pandora&#8217;s Box into hell. I had no idea what new crap was going to show up.</p>
<p>I started talking to Steph, my friend/coach about all the problems with the business. She asked me to tell her everything I didn&#8217;t like about it, and I just went OFF. I kept going and going for several minutes without even stopping to think. The reasons I hated this business effortlessly oozed out of me.</p>
<p>Steph asked me what would happen if I were to love the site and use loving actions with it. As much as I respect her, the idea felt ridiculously farfetched. I couldn&#8217;t fathom even not hating it, much less using loving actions with it. I hated everything about it. Even the customers, which are normally my favorite part of any site I have, seemed to find endless ways to upset me.</p>
<p>Because I&#8217;m usually the most loving person you could meet, I felt the fact that this was taking such a toll on me seemed to speak volumes on IT. Obviously IT was the problem &#8211; it&#8217;s not like it&#8217;s in MY nature to get angry for no reason.</p>
<p>After I vented, Steph reminded me of something I never thought of. She mentioned that EVERYTHING has energy to it &#8211; even digital, and even if I created it.</p>
<p>She acknowledged I&#8217;d been pretty awful to the business. And really &#8211; what does anyone (or anything) do if you hate them? They hate you back!</p>
<p>It only makes sense.</p>
<p>Steph told me to &#8220;talk&#8221; to the business. She had me write a letter to it and tell it what I hated about it, what I loved about it, and what my  goals were with it.</p>
<p>When I was done, she told me to have IT write a letter to ME &#8211; what it hated about me, loved about me, and what its goals were.</p>
<p>She told me I&#8217;d probably see that we both wanted the same outcome but were going about it differently.</p>
<p>Turns out she was right.</p>
<p>That exercise turned out to be really eye-opening for me. I&#8217;ve been much more nurturing with the business since then (not immediately getting annoyed at customers, not immediately going on the defensive if I read incorrect/uninformed reviews, etc.), and my happiness levels have definitely increased. I&#8217;m realizing the business is trying hard (and no longer punishing me), and when there are issues, I&#8217;m looking at them as &#8220;How can I help this?&#8221; versus &#8220;I loathe you!&#8221;.</p>
<p>Things had the potential  to go a lot worse but now that I&#8217;ve done the exercise things are   seeming to &#8220;magically&#8221; work out right  now.</p>
<p>And heck, even if it doesn&#8217;t yet feel comfortable to you to consider that digital (or physical) stuff has energy, look at in a different way. If you did the same exercise solely to put yourself in another perspective, I bet it would help a lot. Ignorance is often the cause of annoyance. Getting a better view on something has got to almost undoubtedly at least <em>improve</em> whatever you&#8217;re struggling with in life.</p>
<p>Anyway, I just wanted to make this post in case there&#8217;s some kind of situation frustrating you and this type of perspective could help.</p>
<p>I sure hope so. <img src='http://rachelrofe.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>I don&#8217;t need your approval :)</title>
		<link>http://rachelrofe.com/i-dont-need-your-approval</link>
		<comments>http://rachelrofe.com/i-dont-need-your-approval#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 26 Jun 2010 18:13:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Inspiration]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Spirituality]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://rachelrofe.com/?p=803</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I have been doing a lot of personality studying lately, and one thing I really noticed about myself is I&#8217;m pretty conditioned to doing things for other people&#8217;s approval. I never really realized it before, but after studying the eneagram (more posts coming soon on that), it was quite fascinating to see just how much [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I have been doing a lot of personality studying lately, and one thing I really noticed about myself is I&#8217;m pretty conditioned to doing things for other people&#8217;s approval.</p>
<p>I never really realized it before, but after studying the eneagram (more posts coming soon on that), it was quite fascinating to see just how much I do so other people may like me.</p>
<p>I never realized approval was the reason for my doing nice things but after learning the eneagram it became very apparent.</p>
<p>Truthfully I know most people do this at one level or another, but I&#8217;m not OK with being &#8220;most people&#8221; &#8211; I want to push myself as much as possible.</p>
<p>After learning the eneagram I started to watch my patterns from an observer&#8217;s standpoint without shame or judgment attached. It was very interesting to realize not only do I expect everyone to like me,  but if they don&#8217;t, I tend to want nothing to do with them.</p>
<p>That&#8217;s a shame since people who dislike me are probably the ones I could learn the most from (and they, me).</p>
<p>When my mentor Piperlyne shared the poem &#8220;The Invitation&#8221; with me yesterday, it seemed to fit everything I have been thinking about lately. I had seen it before but it never spoke to me on such a soul-screaming level as it does now.</p>
<p>I am using this poem to remember:</p>
<ul>
<li>Even if I already committed to something I have the right to change my mind (And not think of myself as a liar.)</li>
<p></p>
<li>It&#8217;s OK to put myself before others (And I&#8217;m really just taking the easy way out by putting others first.)</li>
<p></p>
<li>What other people think about me really doesn&#8217;t need to concern me. I can learn from it or I can ignore it &#8211; but I definitely don&#8217;t need to personalize it.</li>
<p></p>
<li>When talking to people I should talk about what *I* feel. I no longer choose to watch people&#8217;s facial expressions and body language to gauge approval/disapproval and move the conversation accordingly.</li>
<p></p>
<li>It is not &#8220;spiritual&#8221; to put other&#8217;s in front of me all the time. In fact it&#8217;s pretty fake and not at all honoring my highest self.</li>
<p></p>
<li> I can still be nice to others. It&#8217;s just that it needs to come from a place of wanting to do it for the love of them/the world and not for approval.</li>
<p></p>
<li> Sitting in pain is FINE and not something I need to hide from. I am allowed to feel sad, angry, or hurt and it&#8217;s a beautiful thing.</li>
<p></p>
<li>It&#8217;s perfectly OK to look like a fool =)</li>
<p>
</ul>
<p>Without further ado, here&#8217;s the amazing poem:</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>The Invitation by Oriah</strong></p>
<p>It doesn’t interest me<br />
what you do for a living.<br />
I want to know<br />
what you ache for<br />
and if you dare to dream<br />
of meeting your heart’s longing.</p>
<p>It doesn’t interest me<br />
how old you are.<br />
I want to know<br />
if you will risk<br />
looking like a fool<br />
for love<br />
for your dream<br />
for the adventure of being alive.</p>
<p>It doesn’t interest me<br />
what planets are<br />
squaring your moon&#8230;<br />
I want to know<br />
if you have touched<br />
the centre of your own sorrow<br />
if you have been opened<br />
by life’s betrayals<br />
or have become shrivelled and closed<br />
from fear of further pain.</p>
<p>I want to know<br />
if you can sit with pain<br />
mine or your own<br />
without moving to hide it<br />
or fade it<br />
or fix it.</p>
<p>I want to know<br />
if you can be with joy<br />
mine or your own<br />
if you can dance with wildness<br />
and let the ecstasy fill you<br />
to the tips of your fingers and toes<br />
without cautioning us<br />
to be careful<br />
to be realistic<br />
to remember the limitations<br />
of being human.</p>
<p>It doesn’t interest me<br />
if the story you are telling me<br />
is true.<br />
I want to know if you can<br />
disappoint another<br />
to be true to yourself.<br />
If you can bear<br />
the accusation of betrayal<br />
and not betray your own soul.<br />
If you can be faithless<br />
and therefore trustworthy.</p>
<p>I want to know if you can see Beauty<br />
even when it is not pretty<br />
every day.<br />
And if you can source your own life<br />
from its presence.</p>
<p>I want to know<br />
if you can live with failure<br />
yours and mine<br />
and still stand at the edge of the lake<br />
and shout to the silver of the full moon,<br />
“Yes.”</p>
<p>It doesn’t interest me<br />
to know where you live<br />
or how much money you have.<br />
I want to know if you can get up<br />
after the night of grief and despair<br />
weary and bruised to the bone<br />
and do what needs to be done<br />
to feed the children.</p>
<p>It doesn’t interest me<br />
who you know<br />
or how you came to be here.<br />
I want to know if you will stand<br />
in the centre of the fire<br />
with me<br />
and not shrink back.</p>
<p>It doesn’t interest me<br />
where or what or with whom<br />
you have studied.<br />
I want to know<br />
what sustains you<br />
from the inside<br />
when all else falls away.</p>
<p>I want to know<br />
if you can be alone<br />
with yourself<br />
and if you truly like<br />
the company you keep<br />
in the empty moments.</p>
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		<title>Reiki Training</title>
		<link>http://rachelrofe.com/reiki-training</link>
		<comments>http://rachelrofe.com/reiki-training#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 20 May 2009 01:25:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Experiences]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Spirituality]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://rachelrofe.com/reiki-training/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I randomly came across the &#8220;Record&#8221; button in Viddler, so I made a video! This one&#8217;s about my recent Reiki training. I know Reiki isn&#8217;t the most &#8220;widespread&#8221; type thing, but&#8230; guess I just don&#8217;t care. The video&#8217;s not the best quality &#8211; not sure why &#8211; but it&#8217;s good enough, I think, so here [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I randomly came across the &#8220;Record&#8221; button in Viddler, so I made a video!</p>
<p>This one&#8217;s about my recent Reiki training. I know Reiki isn&#8217;t the most &#8220;widespread&#8221; type thing, but&#8230; guess I just don&#8217;t care. <img src='http://rachelrofe.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif' alt=';)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p>The video&#8217;s not the best quality &#8211; not sure why &#8211; but it&#8217;s good enough, I think, so here it is:</p>
<p><code><center><object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" width="437" height="370" id="viddler_d9aecec5"><param name="movie" value="http://www.viddler.com/player/d9aecec5/" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><embed src="http://www.viddler.com/player/d9aecec5/" width="437" height="370" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowScriptAccess="always" allowFullScreen="true" name="viddler_d9aecec5"></embed></object></center></code></p>
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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know&#8230;</title>
		<link>http://rachelrofe.com/the-more-i-learn-the-more-i-realize-how-little-i-know</link>
		<comments>http://rachelrofe.com/the-more-i-learn-the-more-i-realize-how-little-i-know#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 22 Nov 2008 18:14:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Inspiration]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Spirituality]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://rachelrofe.com/the-more-i-learn-the-more-i-realize-how-little-i-know/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[My father used to have a bumper sticker in the garage that said, &#8220;The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know.&#8221; This seems to be my life story &#8211; especially as of late. The more I grow, the more I realize I have SO MUCH MORE to learn. It&#8217;s really hard [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>My father used to have a bumper sticker in the garage that said, &#8220;The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know.&#8221;</p>
<p>This seems to be my life story &#8211; especially as of late. The more I grow, the more I realize I have SO MUCH MORE to learn. </p>
<p>It&#8217;s really hard for me to come to terms with this! I&#8217;ve always had the attitude that I&#8217;d like to work super-hard at first, get to desired solution, and then sit back. With growth though, it just doesn&#8217;t happen that way. It&#8217;s never-ending.</p>
<p>I met a guy I really, really respect back in June. He&#8217;s super-successful and full of amazing advice. I thought he was absolutely brilliant, wise, enlightened&#8230; <em>and then I talked to his wife</em>. </p>
<p>She was madly in love with him, which I expected&#8230; but she also told me some not-so-stellar things about him. Things that revealed a lack of confidence, insecurity, etc&#8230; </p>
<p>It left me feeling so unsettled! </p>
<p>I know nobody&#8217;s &#8220;perfect&#8221;, but it&#8217;s almost like&#8230; like, I&#8217;ll continue to do this growing&#8230; and there will never be a &#8220;stop&#8221; point. There will <em>always</em> be something I need to work through.</p>
<p>I mean, I could sit back and be happy with where I&#8217;ve come in a few short years &#8211; I used to tear up (even in casual, party-type situations) whenever I had to talk with two or more people at once. I felt so unworthy of attention. One-on-one I was awesome, but forget about more than that. I used to be ridiculously judgmental and used my book smarts as a shield to hide my insecurities. The list goes on and on&#8230;</p>
<p>But now that I&#8217;ve gotten past that, there&#8217;s whole new levels of things to go through &#8211; such as why I&#8217;m so picky, why I place my worth on some really foolish things, and so forth.</p>
<p>And I totally understand the benefits of continuing to grow &#8211; you raise your vibrations, you attract higher quality people, you can serve more people, etc&#8230;</p>
<p>But it&#8217;s still hard to come to terms with the fact that there&#8217;s no &#8220;end goal&#8221; (unless you count enlightenment).</p>
<p>I recently did an exercise with a good friend that I really trust. We&#8217;re both incredibly into development, so this was a super-fun exercise for both of us. We filled out categories about each other and then about ourselves. We promised each other that we&#8217;d be extremely vulnerable, and figured we&#8217;d have an average of 1-2 paragraphs for each section.</p>
<p>Here were the categories we used:</p>
<p>Business<br />
Friend Relationships<br />
Love Relationships<br />
Self confidence<br />
Goals in life<br />
Direction<br />
Self awareness<br />
Emotional Life (how in touch with emotions you are)<br />
Character<br />
Spiritual Life<br />
Quality Of Life<br />
Top 5 Challenges<br />
Top 5 Strengths</p>
<p>The exercise was unbelievable. My head&#8217;s still going into overdrive &#8211; both with the results he gave me (which were incredible, and it&#8217;s great to get someone else&#8217;s view &#8211; especially if that someone is empathetic and intelligent enough to not only see/feel things and put himself in my position, but to articulate them), but with what I ended up writing out about myself.</p>
<p>I realized that I have way more to get through than I ever thought, especially confidence-wise&#8230; but I also was given new focus, and understood a lot more. Coupled with some recent feedback I got from someone I met on a message board, and&#8230; wow.</p>
<p>The results are going to dramatically improve who I am, my relationships, and my business&#8230; which in turn will help me serve others more.</p>
<p>I highly recommend doing this exercise with someone you trust. I&#8217;ve read a million books, sites, etc&#8230; but very little (the only thing that comes to mind is Warrior Camp) has given me such concrete, power-packed information like this. </p>
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		<title>The Final Analysis</title>
		<link>http://rachelrofe.com/the-final-analysis</link>
		<comments>http://rachelrofe.com/the-final-analysis#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:54:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Inspiration]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Spirituality]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://rachelrofe.com/the-final-analysis/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[One of my favorite people, Tajwar Alexander, just sent me an awesome quote that I felt compelled to share.&#160; It doesn&#8217;t matter who your &#8220;God&#8221; is, it&#8217;s the message: The Final Analysis People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;&#8230; Forgive them anyway! If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;&#8230; Be [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>One of my favorite people, <a href="http://twitter.com/tajwaralexander">Tajwar Alexander</a>, just sent me an awesome quote that I felt compelled to share.&nbsp;</p>
<p>It doesn&#8217;t matter who your &#8220;God&#8221; is, it&#8217;s the message:<b></b></p>
<p><b>The Final Analysis</b></p>
<p>People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;&#8230;<br />
Forgive them anyway!</p>
<p>If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior<br />
motives;&#8230;<br />
Be kind anyway!</p>
<p>If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true<br />
enemies;&#8230;<br />
Succeed anyway!</p>
<p>If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;&#8230;<br />
Be honest and frank anyway!</p>
<p>What you spend years building, someone could destroy<br />
overnight;&#8230;<br />
Build anyway!</p>
<p>If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;&#8230;<br />
Be happy anyway!</p>
<p>The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;&#8230;<br />
Do good anyway!</p>
<p>Give the world the best you have, and it may never be<br />
enough;&#8230;<br />
Give the world the best you&#8217;ve got anyway!</p>
<p>You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;<br />
It was never between you and them&#8230; anyway.</p>
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		<title>My first church experience&#8230;</title>
		<link>http://rachelrofe.com/my-first-church-experience</link>
		<comments>http://rachelrofe.com/my-first-church-experience#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 22 Sep 2008 01:13:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Experiences]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Spirituality]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[To start off with, I don&#8217;t believe in religion (for many reasons). That being said, I find that many religious people are really amazing, good-hearted people so I went to the first church service of my life today to observe what goes on there. Before I go on, I&#8217;m going to note a few things:  1. [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>To start off with, I don&#8217;t believe in religion (for many reasons). That being said, I find that many religious people are really amazing, good-hearted people so I went to the first church service of my life today to observe what goes on there. Before I go on, I&#8217;m going to note a few things: </p>
<p>1. To be honest, I really don&#8217;t care if I offend you.  Not trying to be rude, but I find that most people get up in arms about things they&#8217;re not secure about. There&#8217;s many people who don&#8217;t believe in what I believe in as far as spirituality, spirit guides, etc&#8230; and it doesn&#8217;t faze me one way or the other. I know it&#8217;s my truth and that&#8217;s all that matters. </p>
<p>2. I went into this as unbiased as I possibly could be. If anything, I was hoping to walk out with a deeper respect of religion. </p>
<p>3. Any opinion that I give here is based on my experiences with THIS church &#8211; just the first one I found when I did a Google search. I can&#8217;t possibly make decisions on an entire religion based off of one experience&#8230; this is just what I found tonight. </p>
<p>4. For what it&#8217;s worth, I&#8217;m technically Jewish. I was bat mitzvahed, can read and write Hebrew, and used to know Hebrew and Arabic fluently. Like I said, I don&#8217;t believe in religion and don&#8217;t consider myself Jewish&#8230; but I have gone to synagogue before, although I really don&#8217;t remember anything about it except for trying to sneak out of the room and go downstairs to play with the toys. That being said&#8230; </p>
<h3>Here&#8217;s What Happened:</h3>
<p> I went into church today thinking I&#8217;d just sneak in and listen to the sermon. When I got in there, a guy asked me to fill out a postcard about how I found the church, write down my address, etc. He also gave me a pen and a mug filled with candy. He got another lady to come over and talk to me. I told her that I was leaving for Europe soon and that I just wanted to experience the church. She told me I could find missionaries in any country from this particular church, just in case I had a stellar time tonight. </p>
<p>When I went to sit down, she asked if I wanted to be alone or if she could sit with me. It didn&#8217;t matter to me&#8230; and I was kind of glad that she ended up sitting with me anyway, because I saw she was taking notes which in turn made me feel comfortable taking my own (I carry a pen and paper everywhere I go&#8230; I even take notes during tours. I&#8217;m a nerd.). The lady introduced me to her daughter (who was maybe late 30&#8242;s, early 40&#8242;s?). The daughter asked me if I was &#8220;searching for Jesus&#8221;, and I told her the truth &#8211; that I&#8217;m very spiritual on my own accord, but I do think many religious people are amazing and I wanted to observe. She told me that was a &#8220;cute&#8221; response. When the service started, one of the first things I noticed was that the pastor told everyone to walk around and shake hands with each other. </p>
<h3>I Had 2 Thoughts&#8230;</h3>
<p> &#8230;when I saw everyone going all over the place: </p>
<p>1. My initial thought was that it was a good mind-control tactic (I&#8217;m just being honest).  I know they do this kind of stuff at seminars as an icebreaker to warm up the room/get people comfortable (not saying it&#8217;s a mind control tactic there, but can absolutely be used as one). </p>
<p>2. I noticed that the people shaking hands &#8211; all of them &#8211; had huge smiles on their faces and looked genuinely happy. I thought that was really awesome. Again, even if I don&#8217;t believe in religion, as long as there&#8217;s a good message, I&#8217;m a supporter. Then we got into the sermon. That&#8217;s when I heard some really fascinating things. To begin with, the service was all about &#8220;How To Break A Bad Habit&#8221;. The first thing the pastor mentioned was that &#8220;Some of the worst Christians do&#8230;&#8221;</p>
<p>I thought that was really interesting. I don&#8217;t know, I guess I assumed there wasn&#8217;t such a thing as &#8220;worst Christian&#8221; and that everyone was loved equally (I&#8217;m not trying to be sarcastic here, it truly did take me aback). </p>
<p>(In retrospect, now that I think of some of the anti-religion campaigns, I don&#8217;t know why it surprised me so much&#8230; I mean, that&#8217;s what people complain about with gay issues, right? I&#8217;m not trying to be biased here, but the facts are the facts&#8230; hardcore religious people do think being gay is wrong.) </p>
<p>The pastor then started talking about how once people accept Christ, then the Holy Spirit will come into them. He talked about how people won&#8217;t experience convulsions or anything like that&#8230; but as soon as they accept Christ, the spirit activates. (At this point, one guy kept saying &#8220;Right!&#8221; &#8220;Right!&#8221; &#8220;Right!&#8221; to everything. He was the only one though, and the pastor noted that the crowd was unusually quiet tonight.) He then started saying that people don&#8217;t need anything external in order to live by Christ &#8211; it lives inside themselves &#8211; but Jesus is there to help if you ask him for it.  He said if you want him to control you, he&#8217;ll do that too. </p>
<h3> My Problem With That:</h3>
<p> Personally, I don&#8217;t think anyone needs to accept anything to have their spirit &#8220;activate&#8221;. I think it&#8217;s there all along. I&#8217;ve never accepted Jesus and really only prayed to God for most of my life  for &#8220;insurance&#8221; purposes because I wasn&#8217;t sure of his existence. (I now believe , but that&#8217;s neither here nor there). I agree that once people make certain choices, it&#8217;ll be easier to stay connected to their spirit&#8230; but I don&#8217;t think you need to accept Jesus to have that happen. The pastor then started talking about&#8230; </p>
<h3> All Those &#8220;Crazy&#8221; Christians</h3>
<p> &#8230;and how some people have perversed Christianity. He says Church TV gets crazier and crazier by the minute, because people need to &#8220;fill the flesh&#8221;. The example he gave was of Jewish people. He said that the Jews needed to feel God on an emotional level and constantly be told of miracles so they could believe. Apparently when Jesus was feeding them, they kept following him. The minute Jesus stopped feeding them, they no longer believed because they didn&#8217;t have any substantial proof to go by. The pastor said that Christians need to feel based on logic, not emotion. They should just KNOW. (Later on though, in one of the times he contradicted himself, he said: &#8220;I bet some of you were torn about if you should come here or watch the Eagles game tonight&#8221; and paused, as if it was an awful thing. </p>
<p>I guess my question there is&#8230; if people are supposed to just KNOW within themselves, and the spirit can activate for them once they accept Jesus&#8230; what&#8217;s the problem with catching a game? I guess this was another example of being a &#8220;bad Christian&#8221;&#8230; that you should pray regularly, even if something you&#8217;re a fan of is on TV. I know that comes across as sarcastic, but I don&#8217;t mean for it to.) The pastor started talking about Joel Osteen.  He said, &#8220;This guy has the biggest church in the country. I started to watch him but couldn&#8217;t go for any longer than 5 minutes because I didn&#8217;t want my kids to hear.&#8221; He said it was just like Church TV, with a guy sitting on a ledge playing guitar, and how &#8220;un-churchlike&#8221; it all was. (That being said, maybe other churches would make me have a different opinion&#8230; I don&#8217;t know.) After that, he started talking about giving thanks. He said not to just give thanks for the good things, because </p>
<h3> &#8220;Even The Lost People Can Do That.&#8221;</h3>
<p> Good Christians, he said, should make sure to give thanks for everything, because God knows what he&#8217;s doing and why he&#8217;s teaching it to you. THIS was the kind of thing I was hoping to hear more of when I came to church. That&#8217;s something I wholeheartedly agree on. I heard an Esther and Jerry Hicks cd once, and Esther was saying that if you go to a hotel and there&#8217;s a hole in the carpet on the floor, you have two choices. You can fixate on the hole or you can be thankful that you have shelter for the night. It was a visual statement (I could picture a hole in a carpet) and it stuck with me. I really liked that message and live the majority of my life trying to think that way &#8211; finding the positives in everything. <em>Unfortunately, that was the only time during church that the pastor said something I agreed with.</em> After that, he mentioned&#8230;. </p>
<h3> &#8220;You Can Only Get Into Heaven Once You Accept Jesus Christ As Your Savior.&#8221;</h3>
<p> The service ended shortly after that. The lady I was sitting next to started talking to me more and started getting deep into religion. I was really grateful to listen to her because admittedly, I don&#8217;t know that much about it. We talked for about 5 good minutes, and then she said &#8220;I know it&#8217;s hard for you, being brought up Jewish, to accept Jesus as your savior, but&#8230;&#8221; I told her that I appreciated the positive messages that I thought he gave either way, and that whether or not I believed in Jesus, I had utmost appreciation for the teachings. Apparently that wasn&#8217;t a good answer, because she cut the conversation short and said she&#8217;d pray for me while I was in Europe because I&#8217;m a beautiful girl and it&#8217;s a dangerous world out there. So&#8230; </p>
<h3> My Experience Comes Down To This:</h3>
<p>Like I said at the beginning, I was hoping to find more of a connection to church. I knew I didn&#8217;t believe in religion and didn&#8217;t expect to love it either way&#8230; but I wanted more insight into what goes on in the spare time of so many phenomenal people. I thought the church would teach the same messages I believe in, except in a different way. I didn&#8217;t walk out with that, but I do believe other churches might be different. I do, however, think that other churches are the same as far as &#8220;Good Christian/Bad Christian&#8221;, and I staunchly disagree with that. Personally, I have love for EVERYONE, regardless of their decisions. I believe everyone does the best they can with what they&#8217;ve been given. Does it mean I want to be friends with certain people? No way. Lie to me once and I usually won&#8217;t talk to you again. I have strict standards as far as who I become close with. It doesn&#8217;t mean I dislike someone, though&#8230; just that they&#8217;re not right to be in my space. </p>
<p>I really do like how the church had so many happy people. Even if people criticize them as being &#8220;brainwashed&#8221;&#8230; hey, as long as you&#8217;re happy, who cares if you&#8217;re brainwashed. I guess I was also interested in religion because in &#8220;The Paradox Of Choice&#8221; (great book!), the author says the happiest people in the world are those who are religious, married, and/or have really good friends (think I blogged about this before) because they don&#8217;t have as many choices. A lot of their world is decided for them, so they don&#8217;t have as much to be overwhelmed by. I can see why people would be happy at church. So much is laid out for them&#8230; they have likeminded friends&#8230; etc&#8230; but I&#8217;m still not a fan. Overall, I walked out not only still not believing in religion, but maybe even having a slight dislike for it. I&#8217;ll continue to live each day, day by day, on my own terms. I&#8217;m glad for the experience though and plan on reading the Bible soon, just to learn more.</p>
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		<title>Do we have free will?</title>
		<link>http://rachelrofe.com/do-we-have-free-will</link>
		<comments>http://rachelrofe.com/do-we-have-free-will#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 14 Aug 2008 16:16:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Spirituality]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[When my good friend Chad emailed me to tell me one thing, and I ended up attacking him with a zillion questions about free will in response &#8211; I realized this is something I&#8217;d really love to hear more people&#8217;s thoughts about. This is incredibly fascinating to me (as I would think it would be [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>When my good friend <a href="http://www.myogenics.com/">Chad</a> emailed me to tell me one thing, and I ended up attacking him with a zillion questions about free will in response &#8211; I realized this is something I&#8217;d really love to hear more people&#8217;s thoughts about. This is incredibly fascinating to me (as I would think it would be to anyone).</p>
<p><strong>What do you think about free will?</strong> </p>
<p>Do you think we have it, or that everything&#8217;s planned out? Or maybe a combination (the bigger picture is planned out, we have control over the small stuff)?</p>
<p>I found <a href="http://www.5min.com/Video/Do-We-Really-Have-Free-Will-351686">this interesting video</a> for those of you who aren&#8217;t into metaphysical stuff&#8230;And <a href="http://www.crystalinks.com/decisions.html">this page</a> is what got me thinking about it in the first place.</p>
<p>I do have some opinions, but I feel like posting them wouldn&#8217;t be beneficial for 3 reasons:</p>
<p>1. I don&#8217;t want them to affect your answer (and they&#8217;re still opinions, anyway).</p>
<p>2. I&#8217;m not quite sure if I&#8217;m comfortable posting my experiences here yet.</p>
<p>3. The people from which I based some of them might delude how they&#8217;re perceived.</p>
<p>Would really, really, REALLY love to hear your thoughts about this.</p>
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		<title>Drive up to Portland, why I don&#8217;t like most self help books, a fascinating conversation, and more :)</title>
		<link>http://rachelrofe.com/drive-up-to-portland-why-i-dont-like-most-self-help-books-a-fascinating-conversation-and-more</link>
		<comments>http://rachelrofe.com/drive-up-to-portland-why-i-dont-like-most-self-help-books-a-fascinating-conversation-and-more#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 08 Aug 2008 06:25:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Spirituality]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Travels]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[What's Going On In My Life]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[So it&#8217;s now Day 2 in Portland and I&#8217;m really enjoying it.Before I get to that though (which&#8217;ll probably be another post), I&#8217;ve been meaning to journal about the drive up. (The post is kind of long, so I&#8217;m going to be writing it in copywriting-style. I&#8217;d be curious to hear if that somehow takes [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>So it&#8217;s now Day 2 in Portland and I&#8217;m really enjoying it.Before I get to that though (which&#8217;ll probably be another post), I&#8217;ve been meaning to journal about the drive up.</p>
<p>(The post is kind of long, so I&#8217;m going to be writing it in copywriting-style. I&#8217;d be curious to hear if that somehow takes away from it&#8217;s authenticity for you.)</p>
<p>Okay, so&#8230;</p>
<h2>The Drive Up:</h2>
<p>The actual drive was really interesting. As I was listening to some of the songs on my iPod, they had a completely different meaning to me than they did when I took my other road trip exactly one year ago. I never would&#8217;ve anticipated that, but it was an awesome feeling. I grew a lot this year.</p>
<p>I got a speeding ticket on the way over. I&#8217;ve gotten out of like&#8230; 12 or so tickets, so I guess it was time to pay my dues. The weird thing is, we were having conversation before he even gave me the ticket. He was asking me about the states I visited, what I do with Internet Marketing, etc. Usually those conversations mean I get out of tickets, but I think he already committed to giving me one this time (he might have called for backup too &#8211; he thought I was transporting drugs at first) and had caught me on radar. Oh well. <img src='http://rachelrofe.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' />  </p>
<p>So anyway, I was driving to&#8230;</p>
<h2>The Most Awesome Sublet Ever!</h2>
<p>As I mentioned on <a href="http://twitter.com/RachelRofe">Twitter</a>, I got an incredible sublet here in Portland.  I got REALLY lucky, because the lady who owns this apartment had pretty much convinced herself she wasn&#8217;t going to be subletting. She interviewed 6 people via phone before me, and she couldn&#8217;t get a good gut feeling about any of them. She&#8217;s very into energy and was super-adamant about only letting someone she felt good about sleep in her bed. It was awesome, because she used the money I paid her to fund a trip to Hawaii. She kept saying &#8220;I can&#8217;t believe I&#8217;m really going!&#8221; and now when I talk to her, she says &#8220;I still can&#8217;t believe I&#8217;m really here!&#8221;</p>
<p>Anyway &#8211; she&#8217;s really, really cool. She was talking about moving stuff out of her closet for me, taking down spiritual messages from her wall, etc. to make me feel comfortable&#8230; I told her a) I&#8217;m happy to see spiritual messages! and b) I&#8217;m only here for 2 weeks, there&#8217;s no need for her to do any of that. It&#8217;s her home.</p>
<p>The sublet&#8217;s in the heart of SE Portland and right near a lot of incredible things. It&#8217;s a great location.So I tell you all of this because&#8230;</p>
<h2>It Leads Me To This Fascinating Conversation:</h2>
<p>I talked with a hotel owner the day before I got here. I was telling him about the sublet owner, and he said &#8220;I guess there are some good people left in this world.&#8221;!?</p>
<p>That blew my mind.</p>
<p><em>He really meant it.</em></p>
<p>I don&#8217;t know&#8230; I just feel like&#8230; I think everyone I meet is a &#8220;good person&#8221;. Sure, there&#8217;s lots of flakes in L.A., but they&#8217;re still good people. And that&#8217;s not the whole &#8220;positive thinking&#8221; thing&#8230; it&#8217;s a fact. I&#8217;ve traveled cross country a few times, as you probably know &#8211; hit 40 states so far &#8211; and I&#8217;ve been positively <em>surrounded</em> by &#8220;good people&#8221;. What a self-limiting thought to really believe the majority of people aren&#8217;t &#8220;good&#8221;.</p>
<p>Now, trust me here&#8230;</p>
<h2>I&#8217;m Not A Fan Of Those Think-Positive Books.</h2>
<p>&#8230;and I try to stay as grounded as possible. Sure, I journal about things I&#8217;m grateful for. I try to see positives in everything and am 100% confident that everything happens for our highest good. HOWEVER, I think those books delude a lot of people for 2 reasons:</p>
<p>1) People separate themselves from reality with all the &#8220;I KNOW it&#8217;s going to work out!&#8221; stuff. Sure &#8211; positive thinking&#8217;s awesome and I strongly believe you shouldn&#8217;t let obstacles stop you&#8230; but you have to do the WORK to get out of obstacles. I think a lot of people stop at thinking positive and then wonder why it doesn&#8217;t work out.I was reading Life&#8217;s Golden Ticket by Brandon Burchard. It&#8217;s a cool book where a guy goes through a spiritual journey, and you can kind of identify your own progress via him. There&#8217;s one point where the main character sees a montage of scenes in his life, and he&#8217;s doing a lot of things he doesn&#8217;t like. He screams, &#8220;<em>That&#8217;s not me! I&#8217;m not that person!</em>&#8221;</p>
<p>His &#8220;guru&#8221;, I guess, for the sake of your understanding, replied, &#8220;<strong>That&#8217;s psychobabble bullshit</strong>.&#8221; His point was that it IS him. If he wanted to change those aspects of himself, so be it&#8230; but he had to first understand them and acknowledge them.Most people don&#8217;t do that.And the other reason I don&#8217;t like those books, is&#8230;</p>
<p>2) <strong>&#8220;We must truly know the darkness before we can truly see the light.&#8221; </strong></p>
<p>Jaime really helped me understand this. Before I moved to L.A., I intellectualized everything. I didn&#8217;t allow myself to feel pain, or anything sad really, because  I figured it was a waste of time. I didn&#8217;t allow myself to listen to sad or negative songs, and surrounded myself with all things positive.</p>
<p>In retrospect, I think that&#8217;s delusional. Not only is it delusional, but <strong>it&#8217;s an absolute crime<em>. </em></strong>After growing more and allowing myself to get pissed off, upset, etc. about things&#8230; when I feel bliss, it feels 10x more real than anything I ever experienced before.I just think most people don&#8217;t allow themselves to open themselves up that, especially with the whole &#8220;think positive! just think positive!&#8221; movement.</p>
<p>Now, I&#8217;m not saying they&#8217;re poorly intentioned. Sometimes you have to deliver messages in increments. For example, with <a href="http://www.yayfood.com">yayFOOD</a>, I tell people about calorie cycling. I don&#8217;t tell them about eating healthy or anything &#8211; if they ask, I&#8217;ll tell them &#8211; but for now, the first step is just for them to learn about the calorie cycling. People can&#8217;t feel overwhelmed. I get it.But still&#8230;having zillions of those &#8216;think positive&#8217; books on the market, in my opinion, isn&#8217;t doing people as much good as they think.</p>
<p>So anyway,</p>
<h2>Back To The Conversation&#8230;</h2>
<p>Despite the opinions I just expressed, I still think it&#8217;s crazy to feel like most people aren&#8217;t good people.I was actually talking to Justin Zimmerman about this yesterday. Like I said, I&#8217;ve traveled a lot.  I can immediately reference tons of amazing people that I&#8217;ve met.  I remember meeting a guy at a coffee shop in Seattle who took an entire day off to show me around. Or the guys I met at Laguna Beach who made me sleep over (there were locks on my door <img src='http://rachelrofe.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /> ) so I wouldn&#8217;t sleep in my car. Or even the lady who owns this sublet &#8211; she made me a zillion maps and notes and everything to make sure I had the best time possible.To feel like the majority of people aren&#8217;t &#8220;good&#8221;&#8230; I don&#8217;t know, it just really got me thinking a lot.</p>
<p>There&#8217;s a lot more I could blog about, but I feel like I should end it here. I&#8217;ll have to write more soon, and I&#8217;d love to hear your thoughts on the copywriting style, the &#8220;good people&#8221; comment, the positive thinking movement, and whatever else. <img src='http://rachelrofe.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
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