love Archives - GIGI LANGER

July 18, 2024

I CAN’T BELIEVE I LOVE IT SO MUCH!

Today I was moved to read through my latest book, “Love More Now: Facing Life’s Challenges with an Open Heart.” I had published it last year and had not really done much n terms of marketing it. So, there it sat–neglected!

But this morning I got a nudge (from my True Self) to pick it up and read every page. It took me about 4 hours (without doing any of the reflection questions), and I was amazed to discover how good it is. In fact, I can’t believe I wrote it!

Well, I didn’t really write it–not alone. Although the inspiration and ideas came from my heart and my higher power, I hired two fabulous editors to help make the book logical and interesting. They were expensive, but, looking back, I am so glad I spent those many dollars!

So, I thought I would begin sharing excerpts with you in my blog posts. Here’s a bit that shares how my life launched me on a quest for happiness and joy, in spite of my troubled past.

Your True Self Has Your Back

What is this True Self I’m referring to? It’s the divine you, deep inside, that guides you through the world with love and wisdom. Although this True Self has never left you, it may have been hidden by heart-closing fears, resentments, and self-criticism. Fortunately, you can remove these barriers by opening your heart to Loving Energy, thus revealing the power of your True Self.

It’s not as hard as you might think. In fact, you’ve already experienced many heart-opening moments of your own. It’s just a matter of noticing and cultivating receptivity to them. Here’s a story about one such moment in my life.

Many years ago, my third husband and I took a trip out west. Having realized too late that I had married the wrong man, I was miserable the entire time. My stomach hurt constantly, but when I went to the ER, they found nothing wrong. There was something wrong, alright, but not with my stomach. I just hadn’t been able to face it.

One afternoon late in the trip, we pulled up to a gift shop bordering Jenny Lake in the Grand Tetons. As soon as I entered the shop, I heard a bell-like voice filling the space with song. I just had to know who the singer was! After the shopkeeper told me about Kate Wolf, I immediately bought her tape. From that day on, Kate’s music would accompany me as I journeyed out of a hellish life into one of beauty and peace.

With the sweet music still in my head, I exited the shop, made my way to the shore, and found a rock to perch on. Sitting quietly, I watched as the sunlight grazed the water, reflecting back the white-tipped mountain peaks. The image held my gaze. For one long, beautiful moment, I forgot the turmoil of my strangled dreams and baffling, troubled life.

As I stared, the white peaks beckoned to me, seeming to offer another way of thinking, of looking at the world. New, surprising feelings came to me in a warm, kind voice: Believe! Trust! Your dreams are still possible. The past is over. Begin anew now.

Tears welled up in my eyes as I grappled with this unex- pected invitation. Taking a leap of faith I didn’t know I had, I believed. I trusted. Suddenly, my old feelings of shame, guilt, and hopelessness began to disintegrate.

After that day, I started receiving amazing gifts. First, I found sobriety and a Loving Energy greater than my fears. Then, a therapist helped me overcome the barriers that had been closing my heart: codependency, perfectionism, and people pleasing, to name a few. As I continued to grow, I found A Course in Miracles (ACIM), a spiritual text that teaches how to choose Love over fear in every circumstance.

My newest book, Love More Now: Facing Life’s Challenges with an Open Heart is only $9.99 –available from Amazon HERE or Barnes and Noble HERE.

Get my award-winning book, 50 Ways to Worry Less Now, for only $8.95 at GigiLanger.com/buy (e-book at Amazon)

Thank you for POSTING your REVIEWs on Amazon.

Gigi Langer has been sober 38 years, and holds a PhD in Psychological Studies in Education from Stanford University. Her 50 Ways to Worry Less Now won an Indie Excellence Award in 2019. Gigi worked at Eastern Michigan University for 25 years, and now lives happily in Florida with her husband, Peter and her cat, Easter.

March 28, 2024March 28, 2024

Attitudinal Healing #11 and #12: Love is All There Is

Here we talk about LOVE–the 11th and 12th Principles of Attitudinal Healing (AH). “Love is eternal, so there’s no need to fear death.” And, “We can always see ourselves and others as extending Love or calling for help.”

AH is a simplified version of A Course in Miracles, developed by Jerry Jampolsky. In AH groups members apply the principles to almost any difficulty they have. In my recent posts, I summarized the first ten principles:

Principle 1. The Essence of our Being is Love, and Love is Eternal
Principle 2. Health Is Inner Peace, Healing Is Letting Go of Fear
Principle 3. Giving Is the Same As Receiving
Principle 4. We Can Let Go of The Past And of The Future

Principle 5. Now is the Only Time There Is

Principle 6. We Can Learn to Love Ourselves and Others by Forgiving Rather than Judging

Principle 7. We Can Become Love-Finders Rather than Fault-Finders

Principle 8. We can be peaceful inside regardless of what is happening outside.

Principle 9. We Are Students and Teachers to Each Other

Principle 10: We Can Focus On The Whole Of Life Rather Than The Fragments

Principle 11: Love is eternal, so there’s no need to fear death.

To conceptualize this Principle, we go back to Principle number one, “The essence of our being is love and love is eternal.” If we believe that life is eternal, the fear of death can be removed. When we reaffirm our belief system that the love that is our essence goes on and that we simply enter a new form, we can erase the fear of death. To the extent that we can erase the fear of death, we can truly begin to live fully in the present.

Principle 12. We Can Always Perceive Others as Either Extending Love or as Fearful, Giving a Call for Help

This Principle is an extraordinary tool to be able to use in dealing with relationships. If we can keep this in mind as we interact with others, we will be able to mold our interactions in a more desirable way. When we are in a relationship with another person and it is clear that they are extending their love to us, there is usually never any problem. We can
receive the feeling of love and support and respond with our
love and support. We feel no conflict and things seem to readily get resolved.

If, on the other hand, we feel for whatever reason that we are being attacked, we tend to put up our defenses and either retreat or attack back. The flight or fight response goes into action. It is a conditioned response that we have learned to use to protect ourselves from being hurt. If we can begin to see this person that appears to be attacking us
as a person who is coming from fear, we can begin to see a whole new dimension of the dynamics of the situation.

To develop he use of this Principle, as with all the others, we begin by retraining our minds to focus differently. It again means going inside to take responsibility for our own thoughts and not putting the blame on another person for our own reactions in a moment of stress.

We are responsible for our own peace of mind and not that of another person. If we focus on this principle while listening to another, we might recognize that what appears as an attack is actually an expression of fear and a call for help. When we do this, another dynamic begins to happen.

As we become defenseless in the moment, there is a shift in the energy and “the attacker” will feel it. He or she will not continue on with the same sense of urgency with which they began, because our shift in perception will create a space that will enable a new dynamic to occur. This new dynamic will change the pattern and the quality of our relationships.

Source material: Teach only Love by Jerry Jampolsky and AH Review Principles Booklet

More About Attitudinal Healing

You can easily find Attitudinal Healing groups by searching in your area. They are helpful for anyone who is struggling with any life situation. Many years ago, I joined my mentor, Jane Stallings, in California to become a facilitator for Attitudinal Healing groups. There, I got to meet Jerry Jampolsky (now deceased). What a wonderful contribution he has made to the world!

My newest book, Love More Now: Facing Life’s Challenges with an Open Heart is available from Amazon HERE or Barnes and Noble HERE.

Get my award-winning book, 50 Ways to Worry Less Now, for only $8.95 at GigiLanger.com/buy (e-book at Amazon)

Thank you for POSTING your REVIEWs on Amazon.

March 3, 2022March 3, 2022

CAN WE GIVE TO OTHERS WHAT WE WANT TO RECEIVE?

What do we want? At the most basic level, we all want to be loved. We want to feel safe, accepted and cared for. Many of us spend our entire lives in a headlong search for these basics, only to fail in our quest. Likely, it’s because we’ve had it backwards: We can only receive for ourselves what we give to others.

If we want loving care for ourselves, then why is it so hard to give it to others? One answer: the fearful self (ego) perceives a limited amount of love in the world, and believes if we give it away, we’ll lose it forever. But the opposite is true: in the world of our spiritual selves, love is unlimited; in fact it only grows when we give it away. But so often we don’t.

Resistance to Love

Have you ever found yourself thinking of calling someone, and then withholding it or putting it off? I do. Often! Love’s voice might sound like this: You should call ____; they could use some support. Then ego closes my heart and whispers, You don’t have time, or They don’t really need your call. The excuses proliferate: You might be disturbing them. Why would they want to talk to you anyway?

What’s up with that? Well, somewhere deep in my shadow, I’m resisting caring for that person, based on something they either did or didn’t do. Or they might remind me of some painful situation, and my fear-filled thoughts get so loud they distract me from taking loving action.

When we give in to such resentments, we unwittingly cut off love for ourselves—the exact thing we’ve been searching for! We just can’t receive what we’re unable to give. (Although, in recovery and spiritual communities, the generous love given to us often melts our resistance.)

Learning to Open Our Hearts

Learning to give and receive love heals the patterns that have sabotaged our past relationships. This journey requires a few commitments: Abstaining from numbing our feelings with romance, food, alcohol, or other mind-altering substances; joining regularly with people who are growing out of self-centered fear and into their open-hearted selves; and finally, doing the work by using many daily tools to replace our negativity with love—for God, ourselves, and everyone else.

For me, the Twelve Steps, therapy, and my Course in Miracles study groups have totally transformed my life. Although I may sometimes resist my heart’s call to give love, I notice this, ask my higher power to reshape my negative thoughts, and move forward with love and care.

Although it’s a joy to live this way, I must admit, I don’t follow my own advice every minute of every day. For example, I’d rather be writing this than reaching out to my sister. I think I’ll call her now! (I just did, and it was a wonderful conversation!)

When we give open-hearted love to others, they can offer it to another, who then opens their heart to another, and so on. It’s a beautiful chain of light that begins when we reject our self-centered fear and choose to love instead.

I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU:

HOW DO YOU OPEN YOUR HEART TO OTHERS? WHAT HAS HELPED YOU GIVE AND RECEIVE LOVE?

Gigi Langer has been sober 35 years, and holds a PhD in Psychological Studies in Education from Stanford University. Formerly crowned the “Queen of Worry,” Gigi resigned her post many years ago and now lives happily in Florida with her husband, Peter and her cat Murphy.

Gigi’s award-winning book, 50 Ways to Worry Less Now, describes how to correct the faulty thinking leading to addiction, dysfunctional relationships, perfectionism, and worry about loved ones. Check out the practical directions, personal stories, and other helpful growth tools. Amazon: 4.8 stars (Buy Discounted, personally signed Paperback with free Workbook PDF HERE)

December 9, 2021December 9, 2021

WHEN LIFE IS SCARING THE S*** OUT OF US!

For the past two months, my dear Peter has been quite ill. You may remember that he’s my fourth husband, after many failures due to codependence and substance abuse. I’ve now had the blessing of 32 ½ happy years with a caring, responsible, and extremely fun partner.

I love him dearly and am grateful for every day together. Don’t get me wrong, though; I haven’t made him into my higher power as I did with so many other men. No, I stand in the strength of spirit, and we hold hands as we meet life’s adventures together.
So, in this latest adventure, we recently learned that Peter has significant heart disease; and then yesterday, he had all the signs of a heart attack! So went to the ER, and they kept him at the hospital overnight. YIKES!
So, how do we handle things that are scaring the shit out of us? A well-worn statement from Alanon is: The more we talk about the problem, the less we focus on the solution. So, let’s get to the solutions:

focusing on love rather than fear,
not numbing my feelings, and
clinging to strong supportive friends.

Not Scaring Myself: Choosing Love

Thank God, I recently signed up for Carol Howe’s short daily recordings of ACIM (A Course in Miracles) lessons. ACIM teaches us over and over that our fearful, self-centered mind (ego) causes our upsets because it always “thinks” something is keeping us from getting what we want. For example, my fearful voice was crying, “Will I be left alone? Can I handle Peter’s declining health?”
You can see these are all ego-questions about “me, myself, and I.” But these imaginings are only projections of past pain onto the future. They have nothing to do with the truth.
My only path to peace is to reject the ego’s lies and focus on Love. So, I chose new thoughts: ”I will not see this situation through fear; I see it only through Love. Nothing can separate me from goodness; and the same goes for Peter. All is well.”

Staying Present with Support

During my tough times, I have two non-negotiables:

I mustn’t consistently numb myself out with drugs, alcohol, food, shopping, or overactivity. I sure did eat a lot of sugar this week; and I’ve been known to veg out in front of movies to soften the blow of fear. But I don’t do this for long, and I continue my footwork. If I go for days with self-numbing and no positive self-care, I am in trouble and need help.
I must reach out for support from friends on a similar growth path. This is not usually a family member or romantic interest; and it’s not someone who judges or tries to fix me. Most of my support buddies are healthy, sober women.

Your Prayers Rock!

So yesterday, I sent out a call for prayer and support from my recovery buddies, and WOW! did they ever pull through! I got so many sweet, comforting texts (Some who sent them are reading this, and I thank you SO much!)
Here’s one example from my dear friend, Eileen, who sent this request to Rosary Circle, Carolyn Myss’ prayer community:
“Please pray for Peter, the husband of my dear friend, Gigi. Peter has been ill for a couple of months with influenza B and was recently diagnosed with heart disease. Please visualize Peter eagerly learning about cardiovascular disease and embracing the dietary and lifestyle changes that will improve his health. Pray that he finds educational resources that fit his needs and budget, that he experiences hope and that he feels the love of family and friends. Bless Gigi as she supports Peter and bless his caregivers as they develop an effective and efficient plan to monitor and treat him. We gratefully anticipate Peter’s return to health that he may use his life to serve you.” Thank you, thank you, thank you. It is done!

The Good News

Tonight we came home from the ER with a good report: Altho’ Peter has heart disease, he has not had a heart attack, and he passed the stress test quite well! (He does still have Influenza B even though we had flu shots). But, there is so much to be grateful for.
I am so glad I’ve learned to keep my serenity bank full by praying, meditating, and joining with my friends in AA, Alanon, and ACIM. When the scary times hit, I can call on that reserve to help us through it with trust and calm.

Gigi Langer

Worry Less Now!

Tag: love