The intention of this meditation is to bring a new access point to what is possible for you, by having an expanded perspective, and to recognize where you may have a limiting belief. To do this, I welcome you to shift your view of the world into "I Can".

The intention of this meditation is to arrive into a higher ground, to elevate your consciousness into a state of knowing, into a state of calm, into a state of tranquility and into a state of presence. What does it take to leave behind everything in your life to simply be exactly where you are right now.

In today's Episode we answer one of our viewer's questions:

"My Girlfriend and I just broke up. I don't believe the relationship is really over, but I'm not sure. Help!"

Monika and Jan Zands bring their Relationship expertise and degrees in Spiritual psychology to answer viewers' pressing relationship questions!  

In this Episode, Jan and Monika advise our viewer Steve on what to do when you've just broken up, but you're not quite ready to say goodbye to the relationship. 

Key Takeaways:

[1:34] A lot of times, during breakups, people need to truly be apart and mourn everything about it, for them to really learn, grow and develop whatever it takes to finally make it work (if and) when they get back together with their partner.  

[2:00] I have a philosophy that ALL relationships can work. From the BEST, to the WORST, they can all work. If you choose to WORK the relationship, the relationship overtime will work.  

[3:00 ] If you do decide to leave the relationship, make sure to learn, grow, cultivate yourself, travel and then when you come back together again you will have so much more to bring to the table.

[4:00] Breakups can be hard and emotional so make sure you have a lot of compassion for yourself at this time. Whether the relationship is over for good--or not, it's vital that you continue to grow, expand and do the things that are going to help you live the life you want to live whether they are in your life or not.

In today's Episode we answer one of our viewer's questions:

"Is it okay for my boyfriend to be best friends with his Ex Girlfriend?"

Monika and Jan Zands bring their Relationship expertise and degrees in Spiritual psychology to answer viewers' pressing relationship questions!  

In this Episode, Jan and Monika advise Cassie on her unease with her boyfriend's close friendship with his Ex-Girlfriend and answer the age old question: Can Exes ever be friends?

Key Takeaways:

[0:23] Often in relationships what makes someone jealous is the possibility of their partner being emotionally involved with someone else, so it is very tricky!

[0:50] is it possible? Yes. If you are super evolved, confident, and a great communicator, open and authentic. It is ALSO a potential Pandora's box.

[1:25] In relationships we need friends to talk and vent to, it can become sticky if that person you are venting to, is your Ex.

[1:50] If you think you can handle it, you may need checkpoints boundaries and parameters that allow you to speak your mind in case anything comes up that makes you uncomfortable, and you can then re-evaluate. 

[2:00] When Harry Met Sally -- The whole premise of the movie is that Men and Women can't be friends!

[2:15] It is possible, if you communicate well about it. Go into it with eyes wide open if this is what you have decided.

[2:27] You can't provide all your significant other's needs, they will need friends and to have other platonic friends outside the relationship. 

[3:22] Relationships work, because people choose to make their relationships work. If this is important to him, listen to your heart, communicate clearly, make compromises and find the common ground that works for both of you.

In today's Episode we answer one of our viewer's questions:

"My boyfriend just proposed, which is great. However we've been having some problems...I think he may have proposed to fix those problems. What now?"

Monika and Jan Zands bring their Relationship expertise and degrees in Spiritual psychology to answer viewers' pressing relationship questions!  

In this Episode, Jan and Monika advise Louise on her fiancé's proposal, what to do if you don't feel ready and how to repair communication in your relationship.

Key Takeaways:

[0:40] Weddings often bring forward issues that need to be addressed.

[1:00] What is the trigger underneath? What is causing my upset and/or my partner's upset?

[1:44] Getting married is not the solution if you have deeper unsolved issues.

[2:40] Share your concerns with your Partner, don't be afraid to be honest!

[3:10] Why do you feel like you're not seeing eye to eye?

[4:22] Before going into a serious conversation, make sure they feel loved, celebrated and received FIRST and then explain what you are feeling.

[4:50] Address the thing thats creating upset, And you will be able to move forward with more LOVE into your future together.

John Welwood developed a concept called Spiritual Bypass, it is defined as a "tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks." Some features can be: exaggerated numbing from things, repression, overemphasis on the positive, anger phobia, overly tolerant compassion, poor boundaries, debilitating judgment of one's own negative sides, and delusions of having arrived at a higher level of being.

In previous sessions, there has been an exploration between a Fixed and an Open Mindset, and how having an open mindset can help you try different tools and perspectives to approach daily situations in a variety of ways.

People often tend to escape from feeling how they feel, minimizing and over-rationalizing situations. If you don't process the anger or frustration about your current situation, it would be very hard to attract a different outcome.

Whatever your process is, it is your process; you have to walk through it and see what it is that you need afterwards.

You thought until now that there was a reason to be afraid of negativity, but you can switch your mindset and every time you hear yourself saying "should," take it as a sign to take a deeper look into yourself.

You don't have to pour your frustration on others, you get your chance to yell, scream, kick and experience your frustration but not pass that to others. Get the feelings that are bothering you out and feel the relief afterwards. Give yourself permission not to be perfect, not to be happy all the time; feel your feelings; walk the process.

Release your spiritual bypass!

In This Episode You Will Learn: Consider/Ask Yourself:

- Have you ever experience spiritual bypass?

Key Insights and Ahas:

- In order to experience great love you also have to be able to feel great sadness and rage.

- A good sign is when you hear in your head the word "should," "should" only exists in logic but emotionally it is not that way.

- Feelings want to be felt, not denied.

Action Steps:

1. What are you frustrated about? Share all the experience (write it, speak it).

2. Find a couple of things that you can acknowledge — what have you done right?

3. Share with someone that will cheer for you until you can cheer for yourself.

4. Set an intention.

5. Fill the empty will love, fill the pain with love.

Monika and Jan Zands welcome you to Mindset Academy, a place to have a conversation, enhance your mindset, step into the essence of who you are in the world, and to prevent that the circumstances around you stop you in any way.

The Four Agreements is a very powerful book, it helps us make agreements with the world around us. The agreements explored in earlier sessions were: First: Be impeccable with your word. Second: Don't take things personally. Third: Don't make assumptions about anything.

Today´s session is about the fourth and last agreement: Always do your best. Sometimes the best version of ourselves is not what we expect to be. We have ideals about what "our best" should look like, but that changes every day, and our best today can simply be learning a lesson or recognizing a mistake.

The previous three agreements will help us realize what our best is. Sometimes we tend to think that things are "not good enough yet" and this way we create an environment of never enough, separating ourselves from others and from the experience we want to feel.

Bring to awareness what you have already achieved, attracting more of the positive you already have.

Doing our best is taking what is our best out of unconscious and putting it into conscious, owning it and using it to pay it forward.

Always doing your best is appreciating where you are in this moment. You are OK! Awareness is your access to you right now. You will always grow, you can't help it, it´s in human nature, but you are OK just as you are.

In This Episode You Will Learn: Consider/Ask Yourself:

- What dictates if you are doing your best or not? What are you comparing yourself to?

- What does it take to always do your best?

- Where in your life are you currently doing your best?

Key Insights and Ahas:

• Expectation vs recognizing what is really your best.
• Always do your best is being nice and loving to yourself.
• Freedom comes when you are surrendering and accepting what is going on now.
• YOU ARE OK.

Action Steps:

1. Begin to define what you have achieved until now. What is great now? Focus on what exists now, attracting achievement and arrivement.
2. Receive and give away to others.
3. Accept who you are now.
4. Give access to a better version of yourself.
5. Pay it forward.

Jan and Monika Zands open today's session of Mindset Academy following the theme of this month, which is exploring the agreements set by Don Miguel Ruiz in his book The Four Agreements. Today, the third agreement will be discussed which is "Don't make assumptions."

But let's start from the beginning: "What even is an assumption?" It is information we use to fill a gap. We are trained to do this and we often believe that the assumptions we made on the missing information are the reality.

When we receive feedback from others, we can also assume it is our reality, but what others see really belongs to their own belief system and experiences. We have to question our perspectives and realities in order to recognize the assumptions that we are making.

There is a set of action steps:

1. Become aware,

2. learn how to make fewer assumptions, and

3. realize where are those assumptions are coming from.

Assumptions can get us into trouble, but we can make agreements with others, explaining what we mean, clarifying our intentions, and listening to other´s intentions as well.

We often make assumptions:

• - That people understand what we want and how we feel,
• - About what we believe is possible,
• - About what we can and can't do.
• On one side there is what really happened, and then an interpretation of what happened. The way to resolve is to ask questions and to clarify.
• Forgive yourself for judging yourself, and move forward trying to become aware of the assumptions you have made about yourself and others.
• There will be times where we never know the truth, and we can fill those gaps with the information we choose, make an assumption where you are winning; you get to create your reality from a positive and loving perspective.
• See your greatness, be your greatness, and pay it forward!

In This Episode You Will Learn: Consider/Ask Yourself:

• - Become aware of assumptions and the cost they have in your life.

• - Realize when you and others make assumptions.
• - Where are the assumptions coming from?
• - How have assumptions been running your life?

Resources:

The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec Wisdom Book), by Don Miguel Ruiz

Monika and Jan Zands welcome you to Mindset Academy, a space thought to help you have the best possible mind, soul, spirit, and body relationship in order to live the life of your dreams.

This month, the book The Four Agreements is being discussed. Today, the second agreement is where the focus is: "Do Not Take Things Personally."

We usually take things personally because somewhat we think we are special and what's happening around us is directly related to us. We carry this "backpack" of beliefs and thoughts that we assumed belong to us.

Jan divides this concept in two: Taking personally what people do or taking personally what people say. We usually make assumptions, giving reasons why people are saying or doing what they do and how that has to do with us personally. How can we change this?

We can create alternate perspectives, we can dive into why we felt touched and affected by this situation by discovering our own view about ourselves.

You know that you are taking things personally when there is a discomfort involved. Reflect into what hurts to find out what are your beliefs about yourself that are rising.

Ask yourself: What if I am not the way I show myself to be?

If you can really see what you are hiding from yourself, then you can really be free and stop taking things personally.

See your greatness, be your greatness, and pay it forward!

Consider/Ask Yourself:

• Practice: Think about one time you have taken things personally and that created upset — where the hurt comes from; how that talks about you and what you think about yourself.

Resources:

The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec Wisdom Book), by Don Miguel Ruiz

Mindset Academy is led by Monika and Jan Zands. This month we will dive into how do you limit your life in a way that does not allow you to become fully who you really are?

There are several books that are basic for personal development, one of them is The Four Agreements, written by Don Miguel Ruiz.

Jan set examples when we label ourselves as "liars." Yes, that is a big word, but many times we promise to ourselves we are going to do something and we fail to do it. We are also  "thieves" stealing time from others when not showing up on time, we are "murderers" when killing other people's dreams. Strong, isn't it?

 The Four Agreements book brings us the First Agreement which is: "Be Impeccable with your word." When you fail to be impeccable with your word, the biggest injury is not upon others but upon yourself. When you make a promise you first make it with yourself and by breaking it, you are affecting you first and then others.

 Impeccable means without sin. What makes us unique as human beings is language. When you use your language to hurt, then you are sinning. We need to take responsibility of our words and manage how what we say has to do with ourselves more than with others. The emotional baggage that we carry around makes us sick, physically sick, but is not our body but our emotions that we are carrying unsolved.

Awareness and Repetition of our behaviors and words is needed. Sometimes "Upset" is the way of realizing that we have not being impeccable with our words.

Follow this process of healing when you have the access that upset is showing:

1. Think in a time when you were not impeccable with your word.
2. You labeled yourself after that situation, you carry the memory of that moment, blaming and judging yourself.
3. Free yourself by practicing forgiveness. Forgive yourself for judging yourself.
4. What is the truth?

Summarizing the work of today's session: Elevate your impeccability by: Awareness. Matter shifts when it's observed. If you find upset, that is an opportunity to heal. Ask yourself,  what is the emotion? Then track that emotion in time. (Find the pattern and heal them all by starting with one.) What happened? What was the judgment? Now, practice compassion and self forgiveness. Fill the space with LOVE, YOU ARE WORTHY!

In This Episode You Will Learn: Consider/Ask Yourself:

• How often are you practicing compassion and self-forgiveness?
• Practice: "I forgive myself for judging myself as…"

Key Insights and Ahas:

• Emotional Upsets are the access to a place inside that hurts.
• Awareness and repetition leads to shift and healing.