Life-saving Spiritual Mindfulness with Lana Carolan

What does it mean by being mindful?

Lana explains that mindfulness is simply the act of being present.  She makes it sound so easy!  But if we're honest with ourselves we'll notice our thoughts are usually in the past or the future and hardly ever in the present.   Mindful.org points out that when you practise mindfulness expect your "mind will wander" and to accept that your "judgy brain will try to take over".  In other words becoming present will make you realise how active your mind is in everyday life and how that activity 'hides' the present moment from your awareness.  Psychology Today explains that "To live mindfully is to live in the moment and reawaken oneself to the present, rather than dwelling on the past or anticipating the future."

There are many mindfulness exercises which make it seem that there are many forms of mindfulness and mindfulness techniques, but it all comes down to being present.  The basic mindfulness meditation is simply quietening your thoughts, holding attention on the breath and becoming very aware of the present moment.  The Mayo Clinic define mindfulness as:  "Mindfulness is a type of meditation in which you focus on being intensely aware of what you're sensing and feeling in the moment, without interpretation or judgment."  With consistent practise life takes on a meditative quality.  

Mindfulness training isn't really a training, it's more a discipline of being present in life.  Even an informal mindfulness practice done consistently is a powerful form of mindfulness that can be an effective tool for improving mental health, emotional Intelligence and managing reactivity to bodily sensations.

A recent study done by mental health professionals at Masaryk University has been published in Frontiers in Psychology and includes a detailed discussion and up-to-date research in the relationship between mindfulness-based interventions, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, behavioral therapy and psychological distress.  

You'll find in this interview that Lana's definition of mindfulness while still about practising present moment awareness, is also more than that.  You'll hear how her practise of mindfulness has become  a permanent aspect of her daily routine - an everyday mindfulness that has developed into a form of meditation that's practised moment by moment in everyday life.  You could say her mindfulness has elevated into a spiritual state of being.  

"...in the beginning, what I found was the most helpful spiritual tool that I could utilise was being present, being mindful, keeping my focus and attention in now, in this present moment. In A Course Of Miracles, Jesus says it's the closest approximation we have to eternity because once we travel into time and by travelling into time, I mean when our mind, our thinking mind is focussed on something in the future or something that's happened in the past - I call it mind travelling or time travelling.  But I can only commune with God right here, right now, present in this moment. For me, that's all that exists - right here right now. When I'm present with God, I can I can ask for forgiveness. It's where holy instances occur. It's where I can commune.  It's where healing happens. It's, you know, it's it's just where all the goodies are. Spiritual goodies are right here, right now." - Lana Carolan

Lana doesn't explain mindfulness as a formal meditation, rather as a wholehearted way of life that returns our inner knowing and more, exceeding the benefits of meditation alone.  This form of mindfulness is summed up in A Course of Love in this way:

"Mindfulness and wholeheartedness are but different expressions of the union of mind and heart. Mindfulness will aid you in remembering. Wholeheartedness will aid you in reconciling the laws of God with the laws of man. Through mindfulness you will remember who you are. Through wholeheartedness you will be who you are."  - A Course of Love: Treatise 1, chapter 5, verse 14

Why being mindful is important for accessing our inner knowing

Being mindful or being present creates the space in our hearts and mind that's required to be able to receive our inner knowing and inner guidance.  Lana includes many examples in this podcast episode, however one very obvious one is her meditative writings.  

She was going about her life, she was working and she was present, even while working.  Suddenly she began to receive her connection to God in the form of meditative writing.  

"I started doing these meditative writings and and I've been doing them for decades now. I sit every morning with Jesus and then I post my essays on Facebook" - Lana Carolan

Many people understand the goal of mindfulness to be a quiet mind, but Lana is encouraging us to take the practice of mindfulness to it's full fruition of helping us remember who we really are.  Psychology Today rightfully points out that mindfulness is rooted in Buddhist and Hindu teachings and is considered the first step toward enlightenment.

Instead of setting daily reminders to be mindful, let daily life be your reminder.  Lana's story encourages us to remember than any pain or discomfort we feel or sense is calling for a moment of mindfulness.  Said another way, the discords we feel are the reminders we experience that call us towards a moment by moment, everyday mindfulness.  Our entire experience of life could be rightly seen as mindfulness training!

What is an example of being mindful

It's difficult to discuss examples of being mindful without simultaneously discussing the benefits of mindfulness.  Lana's story includes many, many examples of the benefits of being a mindful person.  One of the smaller examples that may have been easily missed were it not for her disciplined mindfulness is her first experience with the book A Course of Love (first receiver Mari Perron).    

"I opened it randomly in the bookstore, and the line that hit me was Your first experience of unity may be the thoughts you do not think."  Lana Carolan referring to A Course of Love

The significance of this experience was in the correlation between the words that she had been receiving in her meditative writings and the words that seemingly jumped out of A Course of Love when she randomly opened it in the bookstore.  

A much more dramatic example of spiritual mindfulness is held in Lana's healing of Pulmonary Fibrosis disease.  She explains that instead of thinking about the physical sensations of the symptoms and worrying about her physical health she disciplined herself to become aware and go into a meditation.

"any time my mind wanted to wander into it [the physical sensations, worry or fear]. I just brought my awareness back to the present moment and went in  to meditation, asking God to show me the truth about it again and the fear disappeared."  Lana Carolan

Through this practise Lana was able to receive her inner guidance and she goes on to tell us that "The only other guidance he gave me was, Do what brings you peace? Because a peaceful state of mind is a very powerful state of mind. It's miracle mindedness. And so I stayed in peace, and I don't care what that look like. You know, I would not let my mind wander into time into a future outcome that doesn't exist."  

A Course of Love helps to understand that the unity of mind and heart brings us into oneness and "What happens when this oneness is accomplished is that divine memories arise to replace perception. This is miracle-mindedness. The accomplishment of this state of being is the reason for which you are here. It is your return to your Self. It heralds the return of heaven through the second coming of Christ, the energy that will bridge the two worlds." (Treatise 1, Chapter 6, verse 9)

TRANSCRIPT

00:00:00 Helen Reynolds:

Welcome back to another episode of the More Love podcast. Today, I'm sharing my conversation with Lana Carolan. She's had a really beautiful experience when she was really young, and I'm hoping that through this conversation, we'll share a spiritual journey or a story of a spiritual journey that will help us all along our way. I'd like to start Lana. Well, first welcome. We've been chatting for a short while before I turned on record. I forgot to welcome you.

00:00:30 Lana Carolan:

Thank you, Helen.

00:00:33 Helen Reynolds:

You carry a really beautiful frequency, and I'm sure that's going to come through in the in the podcast episode, and I'm appreciative of that. Thank you. And, I forgot to warn you that I keep my introductions short! I know that you shared a really beautiful story of when you were really young and at school and missing your brother. And I'm just wondering if that's enough prompt for you to share the story with us.

00:01:03 Lana Carolan:

Yes. When I was when I was a child, I attended Catholic school and this was I'm 71 now. So this was back in the 50s, early 50s and back. In those days. I have no idea how it is now, but the priests and the nuns were pretty intimidating and and I was a fearful child anyway, and I really had no reason to. I had wonderful parents, a beautiful family, so there wasn't anything on the home front that I should have ever frightened me. But school terrified me. So much so that when I was in first grade and I guess I was around five or six at the most, but I think I was closer to five. The nuns had my brother, my older brother, come back, come down at recess time and hold my hand. I mean, I was too afraid to play or interact with anybody. I was just so, you know, as luck would have it, he got he got the flu one day or not, one day, a few days. But on this particular day, the first day there, I was on the playground and just kind of leaning up against the brick wall, watching the kids play, feeling terrified. And and I felt someone hold my hand just like if you would be holding my hand just like physical, physical, another human being was holding my hand, I could feel it. I had sensory senses and of course, I look there and there was nothing, nobody there. And I think I was just too young to consider the fact that I was might be going insane or anything. And children at that age, you know, they accept things much more than we adults do. They're much more open minded and non-judgmental. And I but I remember just having an inner knowing that it was Jesus. I just identified it as Jesus, and I don't remember too much more about the experience. But at that age, I knew nothing about any spiritual teachings. I didn't know what healing was or forgiveness was. The only thing I did know was that every time I, whenever I was afraid, all I had to do would be to call on Jesus and my fear would go away. It would just melt away. It was like my safety net and my comforter. Even back then, and even through my early adulthood, you know, he just I just felt his presence always with me. And I remember before answering the door before picking up a phone, I would naturally, in my mind call on Jesus to join me. It was just it was just how I functioned, you know? And I eventually left the Catholic Church when I was old enough to go to high school. And I just say, Well, you know, I left the church, but I just took Jesus with me. You know, he just travelled ruined my life. And he was never the Jesus that I was being taught about. There was never any guilt or shame or blame or fear associated with him at all. You know, he was he seemed to be the remedy to that. All of that. You know, so I was really delighted when I found the Course in Miracles. That was. In around 1980, you know, so and travelled with me my entire life, my entire adult life. I guess I was about twenty nine or 30 at the time, so most of my adult life and then about five years ago, I was I have a very dear friend and he recommended A Course of Love. And and I recognised him both in both documents and those sacred writings. I the energy. I recognised the energy of Jesus in the writings, both in A Course of Miracles and in A Course of Love, because people will ask me, Well, how do you know it was Jesus? And it's just an energetic quality about the transmission that I just identify. I just have, like I said, an inner knowing I couldn't tell you how. But there are lots of, you know, writings by philosophers and spiritual teachers who are channels, and I don't identify with it. So there is a distinction. It isn't like everyone that says they're channelling Jesus, I'll buy into, it's just... it resonates. It resonates deeply within me. And that's how I. That's how it's just like it teaches, it's an inner knowing there's no words that could teacher or convince anybody of it. So you have to be there, so you had to have been there.

00:06:09 Helen Reynolds:

So it's a really beautiful story and I really loved how you said, you know you were so young that you didn't question, you know, you took your inner knowing and embraced it and kept it through your life. Yeah, I think a lot of us, including myself, you know, we may have had experiences, but we've grown up and and come to believe in the material world and the logical mind and and and linear cause and effect. And we've become separated from that inner knowing within us. Whereas you were wise enough to hold the relationship from the beginning.

00:07:00 Lana Carolan:

Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And and it's it's true. The older we get, the more intellectualising we do. And, of course, are all of our understanding or what we try to understand is from the thinking mind of the ego and not only based on the past. So it's it's a lot of times we don't experience something that we don't have an answer to something in in our past. We think it doesn't exist, you know, I'm imagining it or it can't be real or or it just makes no sense. And we just go about our day and it doesn't even have a chance to imprint us. And I think that's what it needs to do. I think at a very young age. I didn't have a past to go looking. And so it is imprinted me very deeply, just like a baby is imprinted in its mother with its mother when it's born, you know, or or or a little ducks, you know, we're animals in imprint with a mother. And and I think that's important. And I think being open minded is is such a key. It's such a key to expand our awareness and to be willing and the willingness to just consider for a moment, you know what, if I'm wrong? You know what? If I'm wrong about everything? You know, maybe there's another way of seeing this. Maybe there's another way of perceiving this. You know, it's because, you know, that's saying, it's not what I don't know. It's what I don't know. I don't know. You know, so if I think I know something that's a dangerous state of mind, I like this state of emptiness where I just come to this beautiful, empty place where I recognise I don't know what anything means. I've only I've defined it based on my past learning tasks, teaching past experiences, but I don't truly know what it means for that. One of my favourite questions the Holy Spirit about anything or Jesus. You not considers them both representing the state the same infinite mind of God or our higher self or Christ consciousness. The only question I ask most often now is what is the truth of this? You know, I just want the truth. I don't care what form the answer shows up in or even with. I just want to know the truth. That's all I want to know. Is it true or is it not? And and that's how I will receive these beautiful messages from Jesus. And we started writing together. I call it a meditative writing. I guess it was in my early 20s, know I was on a business trip to New York City, and it was my very first business trip by myself. And and that also can be kind of intimidating. And I was making notes for a morning meeting. And as I was writing, all of a sudden something took over some. It wasn't an audible voice. I referred to it. And it's and it's funny. That's another story about, A Course of Love that made me pick it up and buy it for years in my writings. I've been referring to hearing the Holy Spirit as the thoughts. I do not think I've written those exact words for over more than a decade, maybe two decades. So when I found the course in, I mean, of course of love. I opened it randomly in the bookstore, and the line that hit me was Your first experience of unity may be the thoughts you do not think. And I had never seen those exact words. In that context, in any other spiritual writing, so I knew I had to buy that book, you know? But yeah, it's it's just so I started doing these meditative writings and and I've been doing them for decades now, and for the last, I guess, 10, 12 years I've been. I sit every morning with Jesus and then I post my essays, I call them on Facebook and it's a it's a kind of a blending I I refer to. It is like the content of it is pure Jesus. But the form in which it's delivered or how it's delivered, it comes through me as Lana, you know, so it's how I speak the same way I read it, how I speak. But the content, the message. I never edited that or changed that or do anything. It's delivered first to me for my learning or my reminders, mainly from reminders at this point and then for me to share. And as I share it, it strengthens it in me, you know, so I love to share the love of God. It's just even talking with you this short period. I can feel love just just rising up within me, you know, you know, it strengthens it within you. So it's one of the miracle, miraculous gifts it gives us.

00:12:22 Helen Reynolds:

Hmm. I'd love to talk about the experience of unity a little more and sort of draw on some of the experiences you've had mentoring. Others use the term note, which stands for non ordinary, transcendent experience. And it basically it can be thoughts you didn't think it can be all the way to a really profound near-death experience can be a deja vu. Falling in love. But it's an experience that warps the time space continuum. And you know, the time space continuum is only really relevant if that word is even the correct one to use in the material form. In our spiritual form w e are not pinned to that time space continuum. In fact, it doesn't exist. So I think it's a really beautiful way to encompass this incredible range of experiences or, you know, holding your hand when you're five years old and comforting. There was no one there. There was that the warmth and the love and the comfort was there. How's that possible in a time space? You know, material world. It's not. So they have these beautiful experiences come in so many forms. And I just wondered for someone who might be experiencing one of these type of experiences for the first time or they have them regularly and they haven't come to a peace within themselves that it's okay or are they just confused about it or something? I don't know exactly the question to ask you about what's coming to mind.

00:14:13 Lana Carolan:

Yeah. Well, you know, I think and even for myself, having that experience it five, I gosh, only knows how many I dismissed because it's just you. Just because, you know, thoughts come in your mind. Experiences go through your, you know, your being and quickly. And if you, you know, we're real good at grabbing, hold on to the negative energy. In fact, that's what holds it in place. But we're you know that happy. There's happy experiences. There's joyful, blissful experiences. In fact, we call them fleeting moments because the energy just passes through. There's no obstruction to it. So you know what I've observed over the years and I've had I've had so many of those experiences, Helen, that I've just been so fortunate and so gifted and I'm so grateful of. I call them just miraculous experiences because I receive them as miracles. But in the beginning, what I found was the most helpful spiritual tool that I could utilise was being present with being mindful was keeping my focus and attention in now because. This present moment. And in A Course in Miracles, Jesus says it's the closest approximation we have to eternity because once we travel into time and by travelling into time, I mean when our mind, our thinking mind is focussed on either about something in the future or something that's happened in the past. I call it mind travelling or time travelling, you know, and I can only commune with God. Right here right now, present with you. For me, that's all that exists - right here right now. When I'm present with God, I can I can ask for forgiveness. It's where holy instances occur. It's where I can commune is where healing happens. It's, you know, it's it's just where all the goodies are. Spiritual goodies are right here right now. You know, when I'm not present, I'm not I'm not really existing, in truth. I'm just I've entered the illusion. It's like I step out of reality and enter the illusion. Whenever I use my thinking mind for anything, you know, I got to the point where I. Don't use it very often, I ask. You know, and and but it's by getting more directly to your question, I I really don't I can't think of anything that I've ever done to. Create one or manifest one, they happen, and I can only notice when I'm having it or reflect back on what I can remember of it. But it isn't like do one, two three and you have the spiritual experience. Because usually there of a revelation quality. And that's from God to me. It's not for me to God, you know? So, but you know, just as far as let me look at healing because we're now in the world. There's a lot of concern about diseases and viruses and healing. And and so I know it was about four years ago I was diagnosed with a fatal disease, pulmonary fibrosis and this disease, if you're not familiar with it, the life expectancy, if you're otherwise in good health is about a year, which I I'm physically I'm not. You know, and and this wasn't just one doctor. This was a team of three lung specialists. Two. One was my primary physician and the MRI showed it. And there's no treatment. There's no cure other than comfort treatments. So that was the sentence I was given to. And of course, being far along in my spiritual practises, I I went to Jesus and I said, What is the truth of this? You know, I wanted to know, I knew what, I knew what the world was showing me. I knew what these doctors were telling me, but I needed to know the truth of it. And the message that I got from Jesus was, Let the doctors take care of your body and I will take care of your mind. And so I said, I stop worrying after that experience. It never seemed real to me, even though the MRIs were in the what were the other things they call all these tests and MRI's? And I don't know. But even though they were showing I had this disease and telling me I had it, Jesus told me, Don't worry about it, just kind of or in other experience, and I'll get to that in a minute. He told me to walk through it with him, and he would show me, it's not real. So instead of running away from it or being frightened of it, he says, just walk through it with me. So about three or four months into the disease, I went back for another MRI and the doctors were a little puzzled because it hadn't progressed as far as they thought it would. And they just commented, Well, this is a pretty slow progressing case you have here. You know, you might live a little longer before you drop dead. So I did. I guess they thought that was encouraging. So I just kept on doing what Jesus said. I didn't think about it. I truly didn't think about it. And any time I want my mind wanted to wander into it. I just brought my awareness back to the present moment and went into meditation, asking God to show me the truth about it again and the fear disappeared. The only other guidance he gave me was, Do what brings you peace? Because a peaceful state of mind is a very powerful state of mind. It's miracle mindedness. And so I stayed in peace, and I don't care what that look like. You know, I would not let my mind wander into time into a future outcome that doesn't exist. I don't know what that future outcome is, but my mind sure could sure whip up a good story about it. It could whip up a terrifying story about it. Yeah. So I wouldn't want to go there. You know, I just wanted to stay present with God. And so that's what I did. So a few months later. I my symptoms seem to cause this whole time, I'm even getting symptoms of this disease, and I was on oxygen and I went back for another test. Another MRI a few months later and it had actually started to reverse itself. And pulmonary fibrosis is like an adult version of cystic fibrosis in children. It's scar tissue growing in your lungs, and eventually it grows to the point where where your lungs just don't work. Because of my age and my history, I didn't qualify for any lung or heart transplant. So so. But the MRI showed it was starting to reverse. I actually had less scar tissue. Then the one before and at this point, they're just scratching their heads, you know, and I felt well enough to take a trip to Boston to see some friends. And you know, I took all my equipment with me and all of my, you know, my nebuliser and breathing machines and but I didn't need any of them. And just being around all these loving people. I just felt the spiritual energy rise up in me. And we'll make a long story short, there's no scar tissue in my lungs anymore, it's gone. And of course, the doctors, they just said, Oh, well, we're really sorry, but we probably misdiagnosed you, you know, of course, that's what they would always say. But I've had a few near-death experiences. I had a true revalatory experience about six months, which is way out there. But I'll tell you on boht, on both the near-death experiences, what came over me and I hear this a lot because I don't want people to ever be afraid of transition of any kind. Whether you're in a body or out of body, I'm still me. I'm still a child of God. I'm still Christ consciousness. And as we were talking before the call, it's much more expansive than this body. A body can't contain who I am, and I found that out. So whatever happens next, I'm just going to still be me. Experiencing life in a new way. And what that is, I can't tell you, but I will tell you, and this was right after having the last rites. I was at the hospital. I acquired a staph infection after many, many abdominal surgeries and the priesthood just left the room and I woke up feeling him, put an oil on my head. And you know, my first thought was, This can't be good, you know? I wasn't laughing at the time, but when I think back on it, I go, Oh my, so I was. So I remember. I remember feeling so weak that I could barely lift my arm or move my hand. And I so I just kind of laid there and just to see what happened next, and I didn't know. But I'll tell you right at the point where you think you're dissolving, where you think you're disappearing out of life. There's something else there's something else that clicked then. And this something else that I never knew was there had no awareness brings on this profound state of peace. And in this state, it's like, well, it's OK to go and it's OK to stay, you know, both of those choices had equalised. One was one didn't look more attractive than the other. One didn't look worse than the other. It was like, What do you want to do? You know, I don't really have a memory of making the decision to stay. But, I do remember that my awareness expanded tremendously to a level that I'd never experienced before, and I really did experience my unity and my oneness with everything. And I remember that the table next to the the bed or the lamp or the tree outside there were just there was no delineation between where I ended and they began. And people ask me, was it an out-of-body experience? And and my body had no more importance than the lamp or the room. It was. I wasn't in it or I was out or I, you know, sense being out of it or in it, it was just a part of the whole unity of everything I was seeing and experiencing and perceiving. There was no separateness. It was truly a phenomenal experience, and it was an experience of wonder. It was like I was back to being that little child again. And it wasn't frightening at all. I don't know. We just remember the peace of it all and just the wonderment, just like the first time a kid goes to an amusement park. You just didn't wonder of it all, you know? And that's how I remember it as being in wonder. And I and my awareness started to come back as I recovered, as I recovered from that. But it was a miraculous state of mind. I'm telling you Helen, and I had so many miracles. I can remember the first or second day I was home and they had nurses coming to the house every day to take care of me because I had a huge incision in my stomach and in and I had I remember and I also had a small child that small. She was about 10 at the time. My husband passed away when she was seven. So I was a single parent and I had the thought, Oh my goodness, I need to somehow get some food in the house. Fortunately, the school bus dropped her off right outside the house. So right when I'm having that thought, there's a knock knock on my bedroom door in walks, a woman I'd never seen before. And she says, Oh hello, I'm sister Maureen. I'm going to be bringing food and taking care of you. The next day, listen to this, I had the thought. I had this thought, Oh my goodness, my car payment must be a couple of months behind. I've got to get somehow get somebody to mail that in and back. In those days, we just use snail mail. And I had the thought. There comes again, knock, knock on the door. It's my next door neighbour. And she had a cheque in her hand and it wasn't for the amount of my payment. She had taken up a collection at the church and she went to a different church. It was in the Catholic Church. She went to church and the cheque was like for $3000 to pay off my car. And she says we just didn't want you to be worried about that Lana and we just wanted you to focus on your health. You know, so all the. It was like as soon as I had the thought, my next, other next door neighbour knocked on the door one day and said, Oh, I just want you to know that I'm taking care of your trash. I'm going to put it out for you on trash day. You know, it was like I couldn't. The instant I thought I had a problem, the instant the thought entered my mind. A solution was provided. And then, of course, the longer I went into time back in the time they diminished. But I had I came out of that whole time, that whole experience, knowing that there was a part of me that was so much greater that and somehow I had accessed it. I had found the access point in which this portal opened up and I became a receiver out of this infinite mind of God. And I knew that everything that I ever needed was always aware. I was always available to me. And now, still, it's a daily practise when a problem shows up. I, I I'm I've learnt to avoid the tendency to try to think of a solution. I don't think about it. I go right to Holy Spirit and asked him to show me the truth of this, especially if worry comes up. What's the truth of this? And then one or two things usually happens. Either I'm shown or I realise I recognise it's more of a recognition that I've given the whole thing way too much meaning, and it just became a meaningless idea. Or somehow a solution will show up in an unimagined way because the solution wasn't coming from my thinking mind or my memory, it was coming from another source, not a part of my thinking mind. And and that's just how I function now. You know, whether it is regarding money, whether it's regarding my health, because I'm telling you, I've had lots of body adventures, you know, lots of I've got more time for the cat and I'm finally convinced that I can't do it. You know, I had two heart attacks, one on the way up to the hospital, in the ambulance, and that same feeling came over that something else clicked in and I was in total peace. And the paramedics there were jumping all around and doing all kinds of things to me, and I'm just laying there watching them in perfect peace. OK, if I stay and it's OK, if I go and experiences where there's no explanation for them and there's no there's no use even trying to understand them because they're just not from here. They're not from this dimension of time and space. They're from, they're from from our unity. That's what Unity has come to represent for me and a little experiences, which I have every days when I'm mentoring students of either A Course in Miracles or, A Course of Love. And when I share the love of God, you know, I as they're listening to me and I'm sharing the love of God, it affects us both because in that moment we leave both of us leave our thinking mind. We're both coming to the present moment and we're joining together, and that releases this powerful, loving energy that just starts to explode in both and nothing unloved, unlike love can exist in it. It just can't. So the best thing for any perceived problem is to return the mind, to love, to turn the mind to God and not to think about it. Thinking is probably the worst thing I can do. If something, if, if an experience or an awareness shows up, that looks anything unlike love and peace and perfection. The last thing I want to do is think about it. I want to not think I want to still my mind, and that happens naturally when I have my focus on God, when my focus is totally on God. It can't be thinking you can't do the both. At the same time, you're either in your thinking mind or your present with God on you. In one, you become oblivious to the other. So the mind will naturally silence itself. All I have to do is keep my focus and attention on God. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get along so much.

00:33:19 Helen Reynolds:

Oh, it's been a pleasure to listen to those stories and your words of wisdom. Thank you very much. No, no need for apology.

00:33:32 Lana Carolan:

Well, I can. You know I can. Babble on sometimes I get so excited and it's a spiritual energy again that just rises up and and I'm just like a little chatterbox for God. You know, I'm I'm. I'm sorry, I should have these poms poms, you know, praised him for what he's shown me in my life. You know, so many things, so many, so many miraculous things, and they're just a couple that come to mind. You know, there have been I mean, my my daughter was addicted to heroin. That's another miraculous story. I was taken outside a time and space to another dimension once. That's a miraculous story. Many, many body adventures where I was shown that, you know, I just have to trust God. He'll take the rest of it. Any problems? Just trust God. You know, and

00:34:35 Helen Reynolds:

the question that keeps coming to mind that I feel like listeners might have is they're listening to you is if they're beginning this experience or that, you know, trying to embody these experiences, I guess I can't think of a better word. Sometimes the words are so limiting.

00:34:54 Lana Carolan:

Yes, they're pretty useless at times.

00:34:58 Helen Reynolds:

How do they know if they're tapping into the to a spirit that's safe? You know, I think there's been such a great deal of confusion, and so even to move into the spiritual realm of our being has an inherent fear now for people or people have an inherent fear about it.

00:35:22 Lana Carolan:

I, well, I can only say that the only thing that can bring evil into my life is my alignment in my mind with ego ego. To me, it's an ominous synonymous with evil experiences or terrifying experiences. Spirit is a totally benign entity. It's loving, it's pure. So, you know, it's like how perception works. If I'm perceiving someone acting insanely, whether they're informed, well, you know, I've never experienced malevolant spirit outside of form, but I'm seeing I'm aligned with my ego. You know, it's like if if I see anything other than perfection and my brother. Whose mind needs to be healed? It's the mind of a perceiver. OK, so as long as I keep my mind in God, it's impossible because Ego's not real. It's a manufactured entity. And if you want to give it form, if you want to give it reality, you will do that. You know, you will do that. But if you know that ego doesn't exist, it's something we made up, you know, and that when we get that crazy mad idea, to separate from God. It's it's it's an invention of the mind. So I just redirect my mind. If I keep my mind here and now with God, then any spiritual entity will be loving, will be supportive, would be will be nurturing, you know, in fact, at night, you know, I still do it. The last thing I do when I lay my head down is to give my sleeping time over to Jesus and Holy Spirit because when I go to sleep at night, there's no one there in the mind never sleeps. My body may sleep. My brain may go to sleep, but the mind never sleeps. So it means that if I'm unconscious and there's no one watching my mind so the ego can have a field day, you know, during my night. And that, I think, is the source of what we call our bad dreams at night, you know, but when whenever I am, I don't have bad dreams anymore, haven't had them for years. And it's and I really believe it's because I asked Holy Spirit to watch over my mind as I sleep, you know, and I give them authority. You know, I I. There is no life of Lana now. There's a life joined in unity with God. You know, it's not Lana needs to do this. So Lana needs to do that. It's like, What are we going to do today, God, you know, and watch it unfold, watch it unfold. And usually I spend my day sharing the love of God, so he keeps me very occupied. I don't have a lot of time to think otherwise. And because I have disabilities and an illness, illnesses, you know, it's the one thing I have. I have this condition. My body has this condition. I should say that spinal stenosis and it can be very painful, excruciating, painful, painful. And the one thing I've learnt to do is to do nothing is to bring my awareness to the present moment and not resist it because what we resist that we were talking about earlier. If I'm resisting something, I'm holding that energy in place. But if I accept it and allow it and embrace it in love it just flows right out of me, that's the most curative thing I can do for any sickness or illness. I can let it be. I can. I can love it, you know, loving something. You know, I once said that the bravest thing I ever do is respond to fear with love. And and it's a simple thing once you train your mind to use it, because love is healing. Love is healing. And whether you really think somebody deserves that or not, it doesn't matter. Love is healing. You know, if you got a pain, you love it that way. You just love it away. And it's much more effective than fear or resistance, you know, so. I think another thing for any new student, spiritual or my spiritual path is to learn, to start trusting because I'll tell you, the only way to trust the truth is true is by trusting it. Is noticed by trusting and you start with little things. You start with little things. And as you see your trust is validated, you come to recognise that you can trust trusting and you'll trust more things and you'll trust more things. I'll tell you the hardest thing. The last thing big thing that I gave over the Holy Spirit was my daughter. You know, it's like, I'll trust you with anything, God. You know anything, but not my daughter, No. You know, because surely the mother knows better than God. And if what and it wasn't until I release control. Of my daughter over to God, that was when her whole situation turned around and we were both healed. I was healed of the need to control and that was probably the most, well that was the largest degree of trust I've ever come to because I gave myself to him years ago. But my daughter, you know, I was still there scratching my head and wondering what to do the whole time my daughter's drowning in addiction. And I remember one night being I was praying that my daughter would be arrested. It was wintertime and I didn't know where she was, and I was just terrified. I was going to get that call, saying they found her dead of an overdose. And I remember praying and asking, Jesus, you don't know. You can imagine that night I was in a state of fear. What am I going to do? And Jesus just came back just as gently as anything. And he says, You're asking the wrong question. It's not. What you're going to do is to ask a different question. Ask what God's going to do. I'm telling you, Helen, it was like the weight of the world was lifted off my shoulder. And it's one of those aha moments. It was like. Of course, I was standing in the way I was blocking the loving, miraculous energy that could heal my daughter or because the energy was coming through. But there was me jumping out in front of it and saying, What am I going to do, what I could do instead of allowing God to do its thing? You know, so it's you take baby steps, but each one builds on the next and then all of a sudden one day you'll you'll look back and it may be a year or two years. You'll look back and and you'll see how different you are, how your experience of life is different. And sometimes you need to look back in order to recognise your forward movement, your forward growth, spiritual growth, you know. But we're always we're always progressing. We just don't notice it. So trust learning to trust, I think, is huge. And also keeping the mind present and mindful, you know, being handicap, it makes it a little easier for me because if I'm not mindful I'll fall on the floor, you know, so it was easier to train my mind, to be mindful, to be present. But being present is huge because you're when you're present, you're not worrying about the future. You're not creating stories about the future or building up remorse and guilt about the past. When I'm being present, I'm just with what is. And you discover that what is is only love and peace, you know, and that's where I reside now I reside. Now I'm not talking about practical things like making a shopping list or, you know, running an errand, going to the post office or pay my bills. But I'm talking about my life's experience of all those things, all these mundane things that we have to do in this life. What is my experience about it is a joyful is it happy, a peaceful because you can get pretty upset, you know, at a cashier or, you know, the mailman, or if you let yourself, if you let yourself, you know anything can become a catastrophe. It's just how much go to. I wonder how much of my mind do I want to invest in it? And so it ends up is, I don't know. I'm happy with my life, even though when I look on it, it looks like I don't know. Some parts of it are like one of those Stephen Hawking's horror stories or Stephen King. That's who I want to say can look like a Stephen King by one person and just be a wondrous adventure to another.

00:45:02 Helen Reynolds:

A beautiful thank you so much for such incredible sharing. I've got tears rolling down my face, you probably oh, see, I've just been so, so beautiful and I love that, you know, you've covered such big experiences to such mundane experience. You know, sometimes when I go to the down town to get groceries or whatever, I'm doing a tree just like. Pop out or my awareness goes to the tree and the beauty of it or the flowers at the moment, it's spring here, sort of the flowers are just captivating. And sometimes I wonder on one occasion I thought to myself, Did that tree just flower right now? Just for me?

00:45:52 Lana Carolan:

Yes. Yes, it did. Yeah.

00:45:56 Helen Reynolds:

They seem to just pop so much. So, you know, as you just said, a mundane thing can become quite joyous.

00:46:06 Lana Carolan:

It can. It really can. Do we have time for one more quick share because I love you at practical one time because I've been sick all these years. I've fallen behind on my income tax and I remember I just moved to Boston and I had this appointment with the IRS. I was terrified and I was siting.. I remember I was sitting, you know, I grade all sorts of stories about the meeting I was about. They had not none of them were good. And I thought, Well, I guess I'm going to meditate here on the bench. It was a spring day. So I've sat on the bench and I just got still and I was just going to meditate maybe about five or 10 minutes before I went in the building. And I just received this beautiful message from Spirit, and I've carried that with me, this was like 20 years ago and I've carried it with me every day of my life. And the message was just beyond your greatest fear is the peace of God. Ego will say run, be very afraid. Holy Spirit says. Walk through it with me and I'll show you it's not real because it was it had nothing about the situation. I wasn't. My fear wasn't about the situation I discovered, and I recognised that was my fear was about my thoughts about the situation. That was the source of my fear, you know, and recognising that and of course, I did walk through it with Holy Spirit. And it was wonderful. I mean, they were the nicest people I ever met. They set up a whole plan for me. In fact, they forgave me for one year. And, you know, and they did. I mean, they did everything for me. And it was like beautiful, beautiful. And it was like ooops, I did it again. I listened to the wrong voice. And we all do it and we all do it. And and that's important too, because every day's a new adventure. And you're going to we're going to stumble and fall. You're going to forget because that's what ego's job is, ego is just doing its job. You know, it's doing what it was made to do. You know, and you have to forgive yourself. And you, I mean, it's no reason to feel guilty. I mean, this is a curriculum. We're learning how to function in unity. We're learning how to experience life in a different way. We're all in school and you need to. You can't. If you're in first grade, you can't expect to do a curriculum of a high school student or a college student. You're in the perfect place for what you need to learn in this moment in time. So, you know, you just forgive yourself, dust yourself off and just really think of it that way. Oops. Again and again, brush yourself up and get back on the road, you know, and start, you know, heading back in that..... Just don't hold on to anything, you know, just forgive yourself. Even if you have to do it 100 times a day. Wherever you are, you're right where you're supposed to be. And. God loves us, no matter what. As far as he sees we're perfect creations, he doesn't see anything other than perfection in us. And we're learning to do that too, through our brothers, through our holy relationships. You know, so kind of just cut yourselves, break and and lighten up and not feel so serious, but this is not a serious thing, you know? In a Course in Miracles, it says the heal is to be happy. Happy is a very enlightened state. If you're truly happy, you're in spirit. You're in spirit, you know, if you're joyful. If you're laughing. In fact, a quick little test you can do is just a smile. When you smile, you can feel an immediate shift in energy within yourself. It just I mean, you can't mistake it. You know, just even a smile, if you're feeling down, will perk you up in a wholly instant.

00:50:31 Helen Reynolds:

The smile came into a previous episode, I don't know, two or three episodes back with Dirk Willner and us, I said to him. A smile started my journey and real. Yeah. And one of one of my listeners rang up and said, you're going to have to tell that story one day. Well, that's not the time that at the smile can just change everything and blow away all that story that's held in the mind and the ego that you are. You've been explaining and just creates a gap, a window for Spirit to rush in.

00:51:09 Lana Carolan:

Yes! A little opening opening. And I love to give whenever I go into a convenience store or something and the cashier looks really down. I love to flash him a smile, and the miracle happens when he gives me one back because I know he received the love and he returned it. So in truth, for a holy instant. We both remembered God in that holy instant remembered love. And and and that's that's that's a big, a big a miracle as anything else to remember God. And it only takes a holy instant and a smile to our brothers.

00:51:50 Helen Reynolds:

And it's a beautiful way, isn't it, to open the doorway to trust and faith? Yes. You know, when I say to people, trust and faith are words in the English language because we need them like we.

00:52:05 Lana Carolan:

Definately.

00:52:07 Helen Reynolds:

And they're they're so unknown, but we need them. And but it can be quite daunting right at the beginning, whereas flashing a smile is not as daunting. I mean, when you're when you're way down in the pits, flashing a smile can be quite daunting, but it's not as hard as trusting and it's not as hard as faith. So it's a

00:52:30 Lana Carolan:

beautiful little result and you do do it. Baby steps first, you know, a little more trusting and trust a little larger. You feel a bigger, you feel stronger and as safe it becomes safe. I feel like, you know, sometimes we're like those little birdies in the nest and the Mama Birdie says, OK, you can fly. And Birdie says, Oh, sure, right, mom, you know I can fly, you know? But she's a long way down. You trust your father because he's wiser than you are. You trust and you and the bird discoveries will that I can fly, you know? But it's been it's been lovely being with you today. Communicating.

00:53:21 Helen Reynolds:

Absolutely magnificent

00:53:23 Lana Carolan:

joining.

00:53:24 Helen Reynolds:

Thank you so much, Lana. I can say from the windows in your background that the light is dimming. It's getting later for you. And I don't know how long we've been talking, but it's been magnificent.

00:53:38 Lana Carolan:

Oh, thank you. Thank you so much.

00:53:42 Helen Reynolds:

So for the listeners, that's it for this episode of the More Love Podcast. I'll pop some links on the show notes page to Lana's Facebook page and some of the other wonderful interviews, and YouTube's she is very generous in her sharing and wisdom, as you've just heard. So thank you so much, Lana.

00:54:04 Lana Carolan:

Well, thank you. It was just so much fun to be with you and and and I'm just sending our blessed blessings to all your listeners and whoever needs a miracle. I'm sending them out to. So just catch them, just catch them.

00:54:20 Helen Reynolds:

That's right. We have to be present to catch them when. Thank you so much.

00:54:26 Lana Carolan:

Thank you.