Joyful Now: Heal Yourself Heal the World

Copyright © 2015 Timmy Matthew Marshall.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Art by Tim M. Marshall

Balboa Press

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This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

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ISBN: 978-1-5043-4499-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-4500-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-4501-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015918702

Balboa Press rev. date: 11/13/2015

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 - Manifesting Your Desires

Chapter 2 - Self-Love

I Can Choose to Love Myself Right Now!

The Last Five Minutes

Self-Love

Chapter 3 - If Joy Is My Natural State, Why Aren’t I There?

Creating a Core-Based Affirmation

Hat List

Affirmations

Another Use for Your Hat List

Chapter 4 - Stress and Everyday Living

Chapter 5 - Shadow Play

Chapter 6 - Visualization and Anchoring

Chapter 7 - Softening Vision

Softening Vision

Linear Thinking

The Awakening

Awakening the Third Eye

The Kundalini

The Oneness Blessing

Changing Perspective

Chapter 8 - Reconnecting with Nature

Spirit Walk

Attuning to a Tree’s Energy

Chapter 9 - Internalizing Your Smile

Internalization Exercise

Chapter 10 - Confronting Fear

Producing the Fear List

Fear List

Chapter 11 - The Healing Power of Desire

Chapter 12 - The Gratitude List

I am Thankful For

Chapter 13 - Self-Massage Technique

Chapter 14 - Meditative States

Honoring the Four Directions

Creating a Circle (Calling Corners)

Six-Rayed Star Meditation

Sweet Surrender

Going into the Silence Exercise

Uniqueness Is Key

Chapter 15 - Living Your Passion

What Are Your Dreams?

Manifesting Your Dreams from the inside Out

Delving

Energy Conversion

Glossary

Introduction

FOUNDATIONS

I have lived a lifetime filled with diversity in an endless pursuit of the meaning of life and in how I have chosen to fit into this world. I believe we all hold one thing in common: that this lifetime has been very meaningful filled with successes and failures. Our choices have led us down the paths we have chosen.

In the pathways of my life I have been exposed to many different cultures, and in each I have found profound similarities and likenesses; this has led me to believe we are far more alike than we seem to believe. This understanding has led me in a pursuit and a study of different belief structures, and religious viewpoints, and it has become apparent on many different levels that we are linked in a steadfast union of emotional and physical needs. We are the same yet unique in how we each have learned to perceive the world, for it is through our experiences that we are completely and absolutely distinct.

In this way the unity of humanity becomes apparent. There is a term called the collective unconscious, and it is within this concept that our unity rests, being the basis of the human condition. The collective unconsciousness is a field within which all human need and understanding resides, and it is upon this conclusion that this work is based. Another way to consider this is as a template upon which the human condition is based. No matter what you wish to call it, it is what makes us human, and as such it’s unalterable. This in no way is a limiting factor. You may perceive another with whatever preconceived notion or bias you have chosen, but if you could take that person aside and truly consider him or her without bias of any type you would come to find this person’s wants and needs are not so different from your own. This is a universal truth, and one throughout this work that cannot be taken lightly.

Within my studies, a distinctive recurring commonality appears over and again in a variety of forms, which I will call the universal need for the experience of joy. Equally so it has been apparent that joy is too infrequently experienced, and it appears fleetingly at that. Do you know anyone who ceaselessly reminisces about a time in the past that was perfect as a kind of joy that could not be reproduced or re-experienced?

Joy is the underlying essence of goodwill and true happiness. It is the truest expression of unconditional love. Imagine if you can the world full of unconditional love: an absence of hatred, war being a thing of the distant past, no more racial or sexual bigotry, and no more crime or incarceration. Can you imagine such a thing?

Joy is the very foundation of which we truly are. Entering the world it was bright and beautiful, new and wondrous, and to have any of our needs met we needed only to express ourselves with unrestrained wails. Within the eyes of a newborn infant, you may see unconditional love and unadulterated joy. The complete absence of bias or judgment is our foundation. As we live and grow we take our cues from those in our surroundings, and we slowly but surely learn to label and judge things; fears evolve, and the purity of joy becomes tainted.

The saddest thing I have found in my studies are people who truly fear to allow joy being expressed in their lives, living as if they are unworthy of love or joy. Nothing could be further from the truth; joy is our natural birthright. You may or may not have encountered someone who lives in a perpetual state of joy, but these people do exist, and you too may embrace such a lifestyle. This work before you is a culmination of many years of study, and it exist as a tool to aid the reader in finding his or her inner resource of unadulterated joy, as the practices herein have been used by many. You may even recognize a few of them—and they work. The only variance is what you yourself are willing to put into the work recommended.

Humanity as a whole is a contradiction. We are a joyful, dynamic race full of innovations and grandiose ideas about ourselves, and at the same time we are basically fearful creatures, trying to cling to substance as a means to increase our wholeness. We fear death and want to live forever, yet we purposefully draw smoke into our lungs and consume mind-altering drugs, which we consciously understand will shorten our lives. We call ourselves normal to fit in with the crowd, yet we fear the crowd, suspicious of what opinions they have of us. We pray and read the scriptures, yet we allow another’s opinion to represent the correct way to believe, and then we call ourselves righteous. We go to such great lengths to understand the workings of God and avoid learning more about what makes us tick. Lastly, we know this beautiful planet sustains and nourishes us, yet we physically harm the planet with our efforts to improve our ways of life.

It is not all doom and gloom, and the solution isn’t found out there in the midst of the problem. We are both the cause and the cure of the reality that we have created for ourselves. The secret lies in each of us, and to reach it we must find balance within ourselves and nurture our well-being.

The cause of all human suffering is found in the individual’s perception filters, deriving reality out of comparing past experiences with current occurrences, labeling everything we encounter, and creating paradigms to fit our understanding of the world. To put it briefly we rarely spend time in the moment that is always continuously occurring, and infinitely new; no moment has ever precisely matched another, and each has a newness that could thrill our senses if we simply knew how to focus our attention on the here and now. This is called awakening, for to awaken is to live in the here and now, and I promise you that getting there not only ends all suffering, it adds flavor to our overall life experiences. Later I will speak about a blessing that can bring about this awareness all on its own, but throughout this book, I will share practices one can do on his or her own to produce a life filled with joy.

It occurs to me that we ought to be examining our methods and reasoning behind our consumption of the planet’s resources, our ideas about our own well-being, and just what that means in this world. There is so much more to us than meets the eye. Technology has simplified so much in our modern-day society. In one sense, it has made our lives easier yet at the same time less meaningful. We have a conscious understanding of our connectedness, yet we are not as close and intimate with each other as we were in the past, not to say intimacy is lost on a personal level, it is diminished on the level of the society we live in, an example being text messaging VS face-to-face communication. This is not all bad; it is just that we are so much more than we allow ourselves to be. We must reacquire our position as the stewards of this beautiful planet, and relearn our role in our service to others, and by doing so we will begin the process of rebalancing and healing the earth. We are so minuscule within the wondrous workings of this planet. We abuse it with pollution and cover it in asphalt. We tap its depths for toxins and pollute the world, and we hunt its creatures to extinction.

This book is a small attempt to aid the individual to guide his or her claim to sanity by reacquiring the joy that is naturally everyone’s. In doing this we will start the healing process of the earth, for true healing starts inside of you.

Too often, I have found that folks are attempting to live life to its fullest, yet they lack a sense of well-being. They willingly sacrifice happiness, compassion, and humanity in the pursuit of success. These ingredients are in short supply today, and it is mostly due to our upbringing and our shaping by society. This is not to say society is necessarily wrong, ours (humans) being perhaps the most advanced on the planet, but that in and of itself presents a serious problem, for we need to go further by taking a look at what we are leaving in our wake. I am not even remotely saying we should take a step back in time; what I am suggesting is that we attempt to reconnect with that which we have left behind in order to progress in a more meaningful and healthy way. Balance between life and nature is essential to our well-being as a society and a race. In our pursuit to simplify life, we have left nature to fend for itself. Nature heals itself through storms and earth changing events. We need to be more conscientious to the needs of the earth, and better stewards to the whole of the planet. This is the paradigm of our current society, it has been on a one-way ride forward for the past two thousand years, and thus here we are now. What this book intends is to give the individual—you—tools with which to reacquaint yourself with your natural state of joy, and in turn help generate a more conscious approach to striking a new balance with the earth. This is worth repeating: as we heal ourselves, we heal the earth.

There is much to gain by simply becoming more in tune with our surroundings. Do you ever spend time in nature just enjoying the essence of its purity? There is much to learn in our own backyards. As we proceed, I will be presenting many samples of real-life situations to facilitate a better understanding of what it is to live in the here and now. I am going to suggest a situation that may or may not be familiar. This is not to be judgmental but to open our eyes to how human perspective is responsible for all of human suffering.

Have you ever known someone who regards productivity above all else, someone who regards the end results over the well-being of those accomplishing this outcome? This is a perceptual situation, measuring what appear to be past successes with current ones, and it underlines the human condition that is out of touch with the moment. One might imagine productivity looks good to those upstairs, but in disregarding the moment, it can be detrimental on many levels, such as undermining the resultant quality, or even causing a serious morale problem, threatening the success of not only the individual but also the organization as a whole. Most organizations that have adopted this model, of productivity regardless of consequence or their employee’s well being, have been historically doomed to fail. Again, my intention is but to give an example of how human perspective is the root of all human suffering. We tend to borrow from the past to justify our actions, which is perfectly natural, but it is often mistaken as ambition.

Take the employee in such a scenario where he or she may feel intimidated by this behavior. It may lead to defensiveness or may make one feel as if he or she is suffocating, yet an awakened individual might show amusement by the display of such an old pattern. Imagine being immune to such patterns. This immunity is well within your reach.

Perception is key to our state of well-being. It is also fundamental to our experiencing our own natural state of joy. At a very young age, we learn to grab life by the horns, to find success at any price. What is success in comparison to well-being? One need not ever sacrifice well-being to be successful; awakening and success go hand in hand.

We can apply the same principal to our relationships. How often do we try to manipulate our partners into seeing things as we do? How far do we go to reveal what we truly feel and to relate to how our partner may feel? By limiting those, closest to us we limit ourselves, and the relationship quickly degrades. This is something our ancestors knew, but we seem to have left by the wayside that society thrives as we support each other and live in service to each other and society as a whole. One of the benefits to fully awakening