Today's writing is, "Can We Really Heal Another?":

At the Galactic Free Press, our focus is upon assisting people in healing themselves. Imagine if that was everyone's goal in Life, self-healing. Not waiting for Jesus, ETs, or the government to come fix things, but everyone actively helping themselves and improving their own lives. How quickly the Planet would change! Everyone being proactive and self-empowered, instead of reactive and giving their power away. Isn't this what everyone really wants? I can think of nothing else that would create a happy and healthy humanity faster than this.

Yet so many are waiting for someone or something else to come heal them and to fix their problems. All your suffering, your fear, the problems in your life, those are things you hold onto yourself. Who can let go of them but you? You protect those things though, you use your own mind to justify them. You cling to fear because you're afraid of what would happen if you didn't cling to those fears. It's a form of insanity, though in society it's "normal".

There's this phenomenon called Stockholm Syndrome, where a person is held hostage and through all the trauma they start to sympathize and identify with their captor. They may even try to defend the person abusing them. Sound familiar? Most people do this with their own fearful thoughts, the ones that bring them so much suffering. They become those thoughts, and aggressively protect them.

Read the full version here: http://soundofheart.org/galacticfreepress/content/can-we-really-heal-another

Link to today's GFP newsletter: http://soundofheart.org/galacticfreepress/content/gfp-newsletter-4192014

Today's writing is, "Selfishness and Selflessness - Two Sides of the Same Coin":

To those used to dualistic thinking, these two things might seem completely different, but selfishness and selflessness are more closely related than one might believe. That's part of the illusion of duality, it takes something Whole, chops it in half, then tells you that you have to choose one or the other. Such limited thinking.

Selfishness, that's believing you're more important than others. Selflessness, that's believing others are more important than you. There's the illusion right there, the "more important" concept. Which part of Creation is more important than some other part? God doesn't create "more important" parts of the Universe, those who believe that don't understand Oneness or Unconditional Love. The Whole couldn't be Whole if it was missing a part, every single part is essential, none more important than another. The whole concept of "more important" is really just judgment created by a limited mind.

Life can't be lived dualistically, not unless you want to attract all sorts of suffering and ignorance into your life, and that's not really living anyway. The whole defining yourself as being selfish or selfless, that's part of the ego identity. What if you see everyone as Equal? What if you consider both yourself and others in your decisions? Then the whole selfless/selfish duality starts to lose all meaning.

Read the rest here: http://soundofheart.org/galacticfreepress/content/selfishness-and-selflessness-two-sides-same-coin

Link to today's GFP newsletter: http://soundofheart.org/galacticfreepress/content/gfp-newsletter-4182014

Today's writing is "The Limited and The Unlimited: Mind and Consciousness":

What is the mind? It's really not complicated, the mind is simply a collection of thoughts that you're attached to. With everything that you believe is true, you make an emotional attachment to the thought and you keep it around. You hold on to it. All your memories, those are a part of the mind. What you believe about who you are, that's a subset of the mind called the ego. Your whole worldview, that's a section of the mind as well.

The mind can be viewed as a cloud of thoughts that surround the Being. Too many of these thoughts, and the mind is all the Being can see, just the same repetitive and limiting thought patterns. This is how the individual and society as a whole get "stuck in a rut". This is why people have so much difficultly really growing and evolving. The mind is what's responsible for ignorance, it believes that all it's beliefs are true, and thus automatically rejects new thoughts and different perspectives. The cloud of thoughts obscures the Being's vision, and pretty soon the cloud, the mind, is all the person can see. This is how people get so caught up in their separate illusions (sometimes foolishly called "your reality").

The mind is what creates the illusion, the mind is the reason people believe they're separate from God. Now I'm sure there's some people who will read what I just said and have a automatic reaction, believing I'm saying the mind is "bad". There's nothing inherently wrong about the mind, in fact it's the mind that creates "good & bad", "right & wrong", those types of dualistic thinking are what the mind does best. If you believe the mind, or anything else for that matter, is "bad" or "wrong", you're actually just strengthening the mind.

Today's writing is, "Communing with Nature":

If you're feeling overwhelmed in your life, there's one thing I highly recommend, breathing. Deep, full, conscious and thankful breaths can do wonders to calm you down and get you grounded. If you're feeling anxious at all, pay attention to how you're breathing. Chances are it's short, shallow breaths, and breathing that way actually helps to feed into feelings of anxiousness. Slower, deeper breaths are highly recommended.

My next recommendation if you're feeling overwhelmed and you need to decompress is to go out into Nature. When you're surrounded by people who are constantly worried about things like money, jobs and other people, it's difficult to not take on some of the energy yourself. It's good to disconnect from all of that at least sometimes, and it certainly helps with finding your authentic self. You can then approach the human world from a much more balanced state, instead of being caught up in the middle of all the chaos.

Trees don't worry about paying taxes, though governments would probably tax them if they could. The whole human world, all the businesses, currencies, governments, and nations, they don't really exist out in Nature. The only way those belief systems can get out there is if you bring them in your own mind. If you can leave all that stuff behind, you will find that Nature is an incredibly peaceful and wondrous place. Something worth much more than what money can buy.

Read the rest here: http://soundofheart.org/galacticfreepress/content/communing-nature

Donation total: $477 out of $3,000 monthly goal

Today's writing is, "Solitude Only Goes So Far":

I can understand the appeal of being alone, especially for the more spiritually oriented in our society. For years I didn't have anybody I could really talk to about what I was going through, so much of my time was spent walking through nature by myself. However, being alone so much never really felt "right", I always yearned for other people to interact with. I did have friends, but it was clear our paths were going in different directions, and being with them very much felt emotionally draining.

Before long I moved to the big city believing I could connect with more people there. Boy was I naive! There's a term, "urban solitude", which describes perfectly my experience in the city. You might think that more people together means more connection between them, but in the big city the opposite seems to be true. I watched as people went out of their way to avoid personal contact with each other. It was fascinating to see people make an effort to not even look at each other. You could wave and say "hi", but many people would react by looking down at the ground. All the people so busy trying to get someplace else that they're barely aware of where they are.

After a few years in the big city I moved to a very small town with a more spiritually oriented community. This was a breath of fresh air compared to the city. I connected with more people in a week there than I did the years I lived in the city. Sure, the smaller communities have their drama and gossip, but the personal connection between people is there and it's something very sacred.

Read the rest here: http://soundofheart.org/galacticfreepress/content/solitude-only-goes-so-far