Live Your Happy Audiobook is officially published!

Live Your Happy Audiobook is officially published!

The month of April every year for me has truly become a magical time. Big shifts, big life changing events have occurred. April 14th 2017 my book Live Your Happy launched.
April 30th 2017 I got engaged to my now husband Christian Mauerer. April 20th 2018 my son Ari was born
TODAY April 14th marks the start of Holy Week and the OFFICIAL LAUNCH of the Live Your Happy AUDIOBOOK – just 2 years after the first print publication.

HOLY WEEK = NOW

I can’t help but think what a beautiful sign this is. Holy Week is a time we can practice avoiding temptations to listen to the ego and giving up the words and actions that come from this listening in order to be ready to receive the gift of awareness of our true nature.

HOW TO USE HOLY WEEK

We can use this time to release any beliefs that contradict the truth and practice accepting and experiencing our true nature and our
connection to God. The message of Live Your Happy goes hand and hand with this because it also helps us return to our true Self.

AUDIOBOOK RELEASE DATE = TODAY (April 14th)

This book has changed so many lives across the world and now I am happy that it can now spread even MORE with the Audiobook. This book was recorded right after I had my son Ari. I read it coming from a deep space of love and compassion. Not to mention that it’s funny! You can forever hear me now saying the words “cuckoo” or “caca” on Amazon Audible.
LOL.

Such as in this paragraph:

“We can choose to see the world through the eyes of love or through the eyes of fear. This is the fundamental choice of our everyday life. In the terms of A Course in Miracles, this means deciding between the thought systems of the Holy Spirit or the ego.
The whole world as we experience it exists because most people choose ego — the way of fear — most of the time. That is, we tend to think that we are separate, alone, unworthy, and guilty. Please excuse my Spanish if I suggest that this is all a bunch of caca!”

WHERE TO LISTEN

You can get the Audiobook on Audible by clicking HERE.
You can get a FREE Sample Reading of the book by clicking HERE.

Thank you for spending the time reading this. I conclude this blog with a big fat smile on my face.

Enjoy the listen
Love,
Mama Maria

PS: I am forever grateful for the nudge of my book agent D Patrick Miller to write this book, New World Library for publishing it, Pathways of Light for the incredible Minister Curriculum I went through and lastly my husband & Web Designer Christian Mauerer for inspiring me to produce this Audiobook on my own when I was scared to death feeling this was way too big of a project for me.

But, as we know there is nothing to big that love cannot handle and as the message of Holy Week expresses we just need to get out of our own way and love WILL always prevail.
The story of Live Your Happy is a true testimony to that!

HOW YOU CAN LIVE THE HAPPY DREAM 24/7

Although the term happy dream is used relatively infrequently in A Course in Miracles, it remains an extremely important concept and holds a crucial place in the Course’s theory and process. Unfortunately, it has often been a concept badly misunderstood by Course students. These misunderstandings relate directly to the students’ view of the nature of the dream and who the dreamer is, the nature of reality, and the interim and ultimate goals of A Course in Miracles. We begin with a definition of the happy dream, taken from Circle of Atonement’s Glossary-Index for A Course in Miracles:

A way of experiencing the world that sees the world through the eyes of happiness, a state of mind in the world that is totally healed. The concept of the happy dream straddles illusion and reality. Being in this world, it is still a dream; yet being happy, it is a reflection of reality. It is a dream of waking and thus leads to full awakening. The holy relationship, in its mature state, is a happy dream. The happy dream is not a collection of more pleasing external forms. It is a state of mind. 

EXAMPLE

As I am preparing my travels to the UK with my family I applied for an infant passport for my newborn. All done & well played by the rule & in time, I was confident it would arrive in time for our flight.
This was not the case – 2 weeks before our flight, there was still no passport in sight.
I called the US Department of State which handles foreign & consular affairs here in the US & they told me the passport was sent out already – they even gave me the tracking number so I could check it online. And so I did – the passport was scanned delivered, but I never saw anything in my mailbox.
Bizarre, I thought – in fact I was scared the $2000 I had invested in my flight from Los Angeles to the UK would be in vain. I caught myself in fear mode and realized that I wanted to change my state of mind. I wanted to have a different experience with this whole passport situation. And so I did.

Now that I was aware, (Step 1) I chose to change my experience by choosing a state of peace (Step 2). I made myself aware that this is not the end of the world and forgave this situation – I’m sure it has a higher purpose. My feeling immediately improved (Step 3). I was more connected to source again. Nothing I should do or complain about, for example that the bureau lost my infant’s passport (Step 4) Inspired by my thoughts coming of this space I called the local passport office which gave me helpful advice. There was a way to obtain a passport within 1 day if your date of travel was within 2 weeks. Since that was the case I pursued this path I got my infant’s passport on the same day that I applied. By practicing (Step 5) I kept myself in a happy state of mind, creating my experience a lot smoother without being rude or unkind to people at the passport office.

HOW YOU CAN LIVE THE HAPPY DREAM 24/7

By literally seeing the world through eyes of happiness.
Yes easier said than done – I know.
But there are tools out there to practice and come to a level of mind-mastery with this concept of living a happy dream.
If you are living a happy dream great – you can stop reading here.
But the big question is – what if you are not living your happy dream in this moment?

Here are the steps to living the happy dream when you are not experiencing it:

1. First you need to become aware and willing to change your experience

Willingness simply means being open to the possibility of change. In my experience, one benefits the most from big willingness. We tend to become entranced by our problems and fears, so it takes real effort to change our minds. We must want to change without compromise. To say, for instance, “I am willing to stop when my mind begins to think negative nonsense, and choose loving thoughts instead.” Instead of, “I can’t,” you say, “I can”. Instead of, “I am not worthy,” you say, “I am totally worthy.” We must be willing to let go of the belief that we’re limited, unworthy, and not enough.

2. Choose peace / happiness

When you are in a state of turmoil, be aware that you can choose differently. This is hard for people to grasp, but you need to be aware that you are the divine creator of your reality. You can ALWAYS choose your experience & menal state of mind.
By choosing peace you give your inner wisdom permission to shine its light in your mind. This is why it’s important to choose peace in every circumstance. For instance: When you have a job interview, you can go into it thinking “I want peace” instead of “I’ve got to have this job.” Instead of thinking, “I’ve got to make more money,” remember “I want peace.” This reorientation of your thinking takes your attention from the world “out there” and brings you within, where your true power resides. When you choose peace and calm, you can more easily receive the prompts of your inner guide.

3. Your Feelings = Your Barometer

It is very easy to determine whether you are living your happy dream or not. Are you feeling enthusiastic & a level of peace? Yes, great – that is a sign that you are following your inner guidance an living a happy dream.
As said above – living the happy dream is the closest that we can be in the dream expressing our reality: Love.
Tune in regularly with how you are feeling to determine whether you are on track.

4. Let Go of Should’s, Have Do’s & Need To’s

When we let the Should’s, Have Do’s & Need To’s run our life we lose our inner joy & feel unhappy. They are verbal cues to us that we are probably following the ego’s limiting thoughts, which we have taken on as our own. We live a separated experience in which our world is not yet healed. In the happy dream we do not feel compelled to take action on these verbal cues because we live in a state of mind in which there are no obligations or things we “have” to do. We are a free spirit expressing our oneness with our creator.

5. Practice, Practice, Practice

Are you living the happy dream yet? Your feeling with tell you as they are your barometer. If you are not forgiving or happy in some areas in your life, you know there is still work to do. So get to it – practice, practice, practice – this is what this dream world was created for: to experience ourselves and extend our awareness of Love’s presence & eternal happiness.

If you feel compelled to dive deeper into this work you can do so by reading my best-selling book “Live Your Happy” which is all about how to embody the teachings of A Course in Miracles (ACIM) and live your happiness to full capacity, because you can – believe it or not – you can be completely free of all the turmoil and problems that seem to happen in your life right now.

Love & Light
Maria

www.mariafelie.org

The 4 Ego Tricks & How to Undo them – ACIM

The 4 Ego Tricks & How to Undo them – ACIM

We have two teachers we can choose from. Depending on which thought system we choose, we are literally deciding whether to live in hell (where ego takes us) or heaven (the Holy Spirit’s neighborhood). These are not places in the afterlife; they are the ways we experience existence right now. We will experience our existence exactly as we choose: “Your picture of the world can only mirror what is within. The source of neither light nor darkness can be found without.” (W-pI.73.5:1-2)   For example, when I was going through my divorce, my ex-husband once called to express some anger that left me feeling very sad. My ego reaction came up right away:   Who does he think he is? What a jerk! Poor me! I haven’t done anything wrong. He should be paying me alimony….Blah blah blah. After a while I caught on, looked at where my thoughts were taking me, and began to pray: “Holy Spirit, I am feeling very sad. All my thoughts are hurting me now. I must have chosen wrongly, so now I choose again. Heal my mind, Holy Spirit — I want peace instead of this.” To my surprise, a stillness came over me right away. Soon I even began laughing. I realized that what I was thinking was just coming from my ego, the fear-driven part of my mind, and that I did not need to buy into it! I remembered this principle of the Course:   Whatever you accept into your mind has reality for you. It is your acceptance of it that makes it real. The rest of my day was wonderful!

The Four Tricks of the Ego

Why do we choose the madness that is the ego? It’s simple: We believe it’s us. We don’t know how not to. Our minds are undisciplined. We forget our innate goodness, leading us to believe what the ego says. The Holy Spirit is the part of the mind that reminds us of the truth, which is that we are created by Love itself (also known as God). The Holy Spirit is our direct line to God. By forgetting that we are created from Love and thus are part of God, we fall asleep to our own reality. The Holy Spirit knows this and can help us wake up if we so choose. The key to waking up is to understand the ego’s tricks — that is, the tricks we play on ourselves. Let’s look at the four major ones.

Ego Trick 1: The Shoulds

The ego has a favorite theme: shoulda, coulda, woulda. As in: “I shoulda done this better.” “I coulda gotten that job.” “If I’d followed my hunch, things woulda worked out differently.” Not only does the ego use “should” to punish us inwardly with such judgments, it then projects them outward onto others: “If you loved me, you would do so-and-so.” “You should have done things my way, then it all would have worked out.” “You could be doing more for this relationship.” Whether we’re punishing ourselves or others, there’s no winning the ego’s game. We will only end up feeling disappointed and frustrated with ourselves and others. When you have these ego-programmed expectations, you can’t be happy because you are too busy worrying about what the other person should be doing, instead of recognizing the real cause of your frustration: yourself. Also, having expectations is not being loving; it’s actually the opposite. You are not allowing others to be as they are, but instead imposing your ideas of how they should be. This is a trick of the ego that will always take you to hell. It’s best to focus on healing our own mind, letting go of expectations, and trusting — a subject we will address at the end of this book. Trust is vital to living your happy.

Ego Trick 2: Obsession with the Past

The ego likes to keep us in the past, thinking about how we messed everything up and how we could’ve done it better! Our mistakes seem to be the source of our guilt, but in fact guilt always begins with the choice of separateness. We actually feel guilty because we fear love even as we go around looking for it, and so we settle for its opposite. For instance, after her breakup with her boyfriend, a client once told me that she wished that she had not acted as if she had cared so much while they had been together. By “caring” she meant acting jealous of the attention he had received from an ex. Had she not acted jealous in the past, she kept repeating, then they might still be together. She was stuck in the past, regretting that she had not lied about her real feelings! This is just one example of the ego’s delusional thought system, convincing us that real love is impossible, so we might as well settle for some variety of guilt instead. Whenever we focus on the past in a negative way, this is a choice we are making.

Ego Trick 3: Focus on the Body

Above all, the ego believes in separation, and the body is the ultimate proof that each of us is separate, different from everyone else, and thus special. Serving the body, taking care of the body, and finding distraction and pleasure through the body are the ego’s preoccupations. In fact, we tend to believe that happiness is found through taking the best possible care of the body. Yet the body is more often our “problem center,” especially if we are trying to find fulfillment, purpose, and intimacy through it. Great sex, for instance, is not a bad thing, but just how often is it reliably great? How many times have you felt terrible after having sex with someone when you knew it was not a good idea — as in so-called makeup sex? In my marriage, physical intimacy was a major issue, so after we divorced, sex was all I wanted. My hurt ego convinced me that I would be happy again if I had enough sex, yet all the “hunt” brought me was sadness. I might feel good for a hot second, driving home from some guy’s place, but soon I just felt empty. Now my experience of the body is totally different because I use it to extend love, rather than try to find love through someone else’s body. Let me repeat that: I use my body to extend Love. I ask myself, how may I serve with this body? How can I serve through this body? Now I use this body to collaborate with other teachers, giving a talk, workshop, or sermon. My body is an instrument, which means that it’s not who I am. It’s there to serve me and others, not the other way around.

Ego Trick 4: Your Happiness Is “Out There”

When ego is running the show, you need to make things happen, and so you try to manipulate the world even if it kills you! The ego is always whispering in your ear (and it’s pretty loud — what in showbiz we call a “stage whisper”), telling you that you will not be happy or free until you get enough money, or the right person, or the perfect job. If that were true, then we would not hear so many stories of people who “have it made” on a material level but who are also alcoholics, drug addicts, or suicidally depressed. The truth is that nothing “out there” will ever give you freedom or happiness. That’s because you already have it — it’s your divine right to be happy as a perfect child of God. It’s vital to understand the ego’s tricks, which describe how the ego projects fear. Then we can recognize the ego whenever it becomes active in our minds. We must also build a relationship with our internal teacher, the Holy Spirit, so that we give to it all our false, negative thoughts, which are of no use. This is your job if you want to live your happy! Each day you have the opportunity to remember that you are not your ego thoughts; you are the decision maker who can choose a different way of thinking. As A Course in Miracles puts it: “Each day, each hour and minute, even each second, you are deciding between the crucifixion and the resurrection; between the ego and Holy Spirit. The ego is the choice for guilt; the Holy Spirit is the choice for guiltlessness.” (T-14.III)

 

May you have a blessed day & not be tricked by the ego,
Maria 

PS: For more information on my book “Live Your Happy” click below 🙂

LOOK INTO MARIA’S NEW BOOK + FREE BOOK BONUS (valued $197) www.mariafelipe.org/new-book/

How to Truly see Abundance + Bonus Prayer

How to Truly see Abundance + Bonus Prayer

Being an actress and TV host for all my adult life, I never had a steady income. I only made money when I booked a job. This helped me build trust in the flow of income in my life and the confidence to know that I am always provided for.

There were times after my divorce when I found myself down to my last thousand dollars, and I never worried about it. I paid my bills gladly, knowing that my source is plentiful. I have never really suffered from scarcity thinking, and thank goodness! (My grievances with men have been enough of a learning challenge.)

In the spring of 2013, I decided to move from my place in Los Angeles at a time when the real-estate market was in shambles. The only good option for me was to short-sell my condo. One day I was taken aback when the very nice guy handling my short sale said to me, as if he were asking a question: “You are so happy? You went through a divorce, you had a miscarriage, you have no money, you’re going through a short sale, and you are happy? How?”

At that moment I had a rush of love run through my body because I realized how free I felt. I was grateful and proud of myself, and I hadn’t really noticed before. It was a beautiful moment. I said, “Yeah, I’m happy. I know that none of this stuff really matters. I am eternally provided for, and it has nothing to do with this world.”

Suddenly, I could see all the things that had happened to me as gifts, each one an opportunity to remember my wholeness again. This is true abundance, and I’m grateful I was finally ready for it!

ATTACHED A PRAYER THAT HELPED ME
Here is a brief prayer that you can use as written, or adapt in your own words, to help you focus your intention on finding your true abundance within. If you’re struggling with money or other material shortcomings, use it daily to get to the source of the problem.

“Thank you, God, for the awareness of abundance in my mind. I am willing to understand my inheritance at a deeper level. I let go of my identification with my body and all external things. I step into your arms and recognize that I have everything and lack nothing. Standing in truth, I am one with all, whole and holy. Thank you, God, for never abandoning me, for always being here within. And thank you for giving me the Holy Spirit as a divine tool for realizing awareness, which never really leaves.”

May you have an abundant day,
Maria

PS: More about abundance and how to live in context with ACIM in chapter 8 of my new book:

LOOK INTO MARIA’S NEW BOOK
FREE BOOK BONUS (valued $197)
www.mariafelipe.org/new-book/

Old Trust VS. New Trust

Old Trust VS. New Trust

Old trust is the kind you learned growing up.
It is the faith you place in your limited perceptions, such as: I am going to trust you because you seem like a good person. I am going to trust this situation because in the past it worked out, and so on. The old trust relies on your little self. The old trust presumes you are separate from the world: You unconsciously believe that projecting your fears out into the world will liberate you from them, and you expect external things to make you happy.
All this is the ego’s style of trusting.

New trust is the kind that will set you free from all your supposed problems. With new trust, you believe in love as your very essence, which means you identify with a different Self. There is no worry regardless of what’s happening around you because you place your trust in love to heal all your misperceptions.

This trust brings you peace, love, and much joy!
New trust relies on the Holy Spirit.

As the Course in Miracles says: “You have very little trust in me as yet, but it will in- crease as you turn more often to me instead of to your ego for guidance. The results will convince you increasingly that this choice is the only sane one you can make. No one who learns from experience that one choice brings peace and joy while another brings chaos and disaster needs additional convincing” (ACIM, ch. 4, section VI).

I began grasping the concept of new trust when I was collaborating with mystic David Hoffmeister, my dear friend and colleague. We were going to give a talk together at Unity Burbank Center entitled “Night of Miracles.” This was one of my very first collaborations, and I was quite excited and nervous! I remember getting to the church and asking David, “Hey, so what are we going to talk about?”
He said, “I don’t know.”

I was stunned! I asked, “What do you mean?”
“Let’s just show up and let spirit guide us,” he calmly
suggested. I was like…Oh, okay. Even though I was a bit nervous, that felt right. And our two-hour talk was exceptional, as we both allowed spirit to move through us. David’s calm and trusting presence gave me the con dence to step back and allow.

After that experience, my idea of trust changed. I began to unhook myself from the “problems” of this world. I allowed everything to happen without worry or judgment, which meant getting “me” out of the way.

Trusting & Grateful,
Maria

PS: For more information on my book “Live Your Happy” click below 🙂

LOOK INTO MARIA’S NEW BOOK
FREE BOOK BONUS (valued $197)
www.mariafelipe.org/new-book/

How Our Thoughts Keep Us Stuck – 4min read

How Our Thoughts Keep Us Stuck – 4min read

We must pay close attention to our ego thoughts. We make them real by giving life to them and believing them — but that means we can change them. What holds us back from doing what we feel called to do is not “out there,” but in- side. What holds us back, or takes us forward, has to do with what we believe to be true at any given moment.

The way out of being stuck in the same old, same old is to understand that our experience comes from what we think, and we can give up what we are thinking. We do that by yielding our thoughts to our own higher mind, or Holy Spirit, so that we may see differently. This is what “choosing the miracle” means: choosing to see differently, and trusting that we have an intelligent power within — our own teacher of love — who will help us.

Pay special attention to the limiting or negative thoughts you don’t want to give up. These are the kinds of thoughts you hang on to even though they don’t make you feel good. Because what you see reflects your thoughts, the world appears hostile or frustrating whenever you are hooked on such caca thinking. Giving your thoughts over to the Holy Spirit helps you recognize that your real home is not in that crappy world, but in the mind of God. When you go home in your own mind, you will perceive Creation’s true gentleness.

For illustration, here is how some specific limiting
thoughts might be changed by giving them over:
Thought: “I can’t move from my hometown. It’s all I know!” Holy Spirit: I honor the calling in my heart to move. I am capable of moving anywhere.
Thought: “I would like to spend more time with my kids, but I am scared to ask my ex-wife. What if she takes me to court?” Holy Spirit: I trust that all is fall- ing into place even though it does not seem to be. I can get out of my own way and trust my inner wisdom. I have nothing to fear.
Thought: “I have to hang on to him. He is the love of my life!” Holy Spirit: The love of my life is my true Self. I don’t need anything or anyone outside myself to thrive. I am sustained by the love of God.
Changing our thoughts in this way won’t immediately solve our problems. But it will make it possible for them to be released because we will have access to the full creative power of our own inner wisdom. When we get stuck in a certain way of doing things, it’s usually because we have excluded the best part of the mind — our spiritual intelligence — from awareness. That means we settle for those false beliefs that tell us things will stay the same forever, and this makes it pretty dif cult to change the now. The weird thing is that we can get kind of comfortable with life being this way.

Love & Eternal Gratitude your way,
Maria

PS: For more information on my book “Live Your Happy” click below 🙂

LOOK INTO MARIA’S NEW BOOK
FREE BOOK BONUS (valued $197)
www.mariafelipe.org/new-book/

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