Author: Janae Bower

A speaker shared the analogy of “Panning for Gold” as a metaphor for finding God’s love. Just like when you are trying to pan for gold there is a lot of dirt or muck that needs to be sifted through first before you can even see the gold hidden within. This is like our lives, the golden nuggets and sparkling gems are within us. Inside of each of us is God’s love just waiting for us to discover, a golden gem that will make our hearts and souls sparkle like never before. Yet most of us have filled our lives with a lot of muck so we get stuck. We might attempt to clean out the muck here and there, yet soon we stop because we are frustrated with the results when we don’t find “the gold” right away.

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For more resources, see our Library topic Spirituality in the Workplace.

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Janae Bower is an inspirational speaker, award-winning author and training consultant. She founded Finding IT, a company that specializes in personal and professional development getting to the heart of what matters most. She started Project GratOtude, a movement to increase gratitude in people’s lives.

I don’t mean Brad Pitt or Brad Paisley. I mean Brad Berntson.

You don’t know him and I barely do. But after hearing from loved ones recently at his funeral he is a man whose character we could all learn from and aspire to. Despite suddenly passing at 51, he lived a life of true service. One of Brad’s younger brother’s shared a tribute to him that was about how to be like him. It was both funny and touching. This is my own rendition from an outsider’s point of view (I was there because his wife is in a women’s bible study with me). It’s made me think how I could be of better service to those I’ve been blessed to know. Because little acts of love done over 5, 51 or 105 years create lasting ripple effects.

Public service

He served his country in the army as a ranger and was recently a deputy. Those public servants like Brad who are called to give of themselves in this way help so many people whom he will never know. His dedication to protect our country and those in his county will never be known to what extent his service mattered. We all have the opportunity to serve the public around us, whether it’s to choose a similar path as Brad or to serve the public with friendly compliments when you are out and about. I will be like Brad by encouraging my family and I to do public service by picking up garbage around our neighborhood this spring. How about you?

Humble service

During his funeral service the priest, Fr. Jon Vander Ploeg, who presided over the mass, said how Brad was the opposite of what our “narcissistic” culture often teaches us to be. He was a man who didn’t want it to be all about him and thus the priest’s homily reflected that. It was message of love, truth and service that we can all aspire to. And when we are humble in our service of and for others that is when can touch the most hearts. I will be like Brad by reminding myself to do whatever it takes to make the person whom I’m serving (not me) happy. How about you?

Service to his family

It’s obvious that Brad’s family mattered most to him. The past two years that I’ve been in a small group with his wife, Julie, I could sense their loving connection in how she would share stories of their relationship. They have two sons who will carry on his legacy along with his two granddaughters. When his three brothers spoke during the luncheon after the service I was deeply moved. This brotherly bond that these brothers shared is what I plan on fostering in my three sons because family is forever. I will be like Brad by teaching my sons how to be best friends growing up so they will be so when they are grown up. How about you?

Service to God

It sounded like sometime during his adult life he had a conversion that changed and transformed his life. One of his brothers mentioned that Brad would do things in extremes and his faith was the same. Once he embraced his love of the lord, there was no stopping him. He served God many ways one being his active involvement at church. Just a few months prior to his passing, Brad and Julie hosted a retreat together. While they didn’t get to go on their second honeymoon planned for this summer, they were blessed to serve together and share their love of God with others. And I’m sure it was an extremely transformational experience for those who attended like it was for him many years later. I will be like Brad by sharing my love of God and serving Him in whatever ways I’m called to. How about you?

May Brad rest in peace knowing that his acts of love will endure forever through all the lives he’s touched.

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For more resources, see our Library topic Spirituality in the Workplace.

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Janae Bower is an inspirational speaker, award-winning author and training consultant. She founded Finding IT, a company that specializes in personal and professional development getting to the heart of what matters most. She started Project GratOtude, a movement to increase gratitude in people’s lives.

I had one of those rare opportunities yesterday that many of us BIG DREAMERS only dream about. I met with this amazing couple who not only believes in one of my dreams, but wants to invest their time, energy and financial resources in it!! When they asked me what I needed from them to help make this dream a reality, I was speechless. Over the years I’ve had many friends and family members invest in my dreams with their time and energy, in which I’ve been so grateful for. Yet for many, many years I (which includes my husband) have been the only one who has financially invested in my dreams.

What I’m forgetting to mention, however, is one of our greatest dreams investors that many of us forget about asking or including. That’s God. He is the greatest dream coach we ALL have available to us ALL the time. He has a BIG dream for your life and is waiting for you to ask Him to invest in your dreams. He longs for us to infuse His dreams for our lives with the dreams we have for our lives.

“Those who come to God with childlike faith must believe that He doesn’t give reluctantly or offer just barely enough, but that He is a wealth of resources waiting to pour out Himself and His blessings on those who ask. He always has more that we need.” – Chris Tiegreen

Take this dream for example. I’ve always dreamed about wanting to make a difference and wanting to make sure that other people know the difference we make in their lives. When I had the opportunity to make a difference in my best friend’s life when her mother was dying, I prayed to God and asked how I could do that. I believe He invested in my dreams as I received the divine inspiration to make a personalized recorded phone line in which people could call in and leave messages of gratitude and appreciation for my friend’s mother. Before she died, she was able to listen to these messages and I have since made them a personalized web site where they can access these cherished messages forever.

Recently this couple shared how they are in a similar situation with a loved one. Again, I prayed how I could help this family and the idea came to do the same thing that I did for my best friend. This time, not only did they want to do it for their loved one, they LOVED the idea as they had wanted to do something similar as well. So this time my divine dream coach connected me with what I needed – their encouraging support – to keep investing in this dream.

I’ll be sure to share with you when this dream becomes an official reality. In the them meantime, don’t forget to ask THE dream investor to help provide you with what you need to keep investing in the BIG dreams of your life!

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For more resources, see our Library topic Spirituality in the Workplace.

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Janae Bower is an inspirational speaker, award-winning author and training consultant. She founded Finding IT, a company that specializes in personal and professional development getting to the heart of what matters most. She started Project GratOtude, a movement to increase gratitude in people’s lives.

The words we use make a world of difference. If you look at the words “word” and “world”, there is only one letter difference and that’s a “l.” I believe the more we respect, honor and love the words in our lives, the more it will open up our world.

Take my two-year-old son. Now that he’s beginning to talk and learn more words, his world is expanding. He is able to more effectively communicate his needs and wants with those around him like never before. On the other hand, take my friend who recently received a diagnosis of dystonia. According to Wikipedia, Dystonia is a neurological movement disorder, in which sustained muscle contractions cause twisting and repetitive movements or abnormal postures. Now whenever she speaks, she struggles not to slur her words. While my son’s world is opening up, her’s is closing in as she is choosing to limit her words in order to best communicate with others.

We all know the power of words when they are misused and how much they can discourage us in our work, hopes and dreams. These type of words are ones that hopefully we avoid using and avoid receiving. Thus, I won’t spend any more “words” on them.

The words that matter are the ones that encourage and affirm others. In fact, “Words of Affirmation” is considered a love language. The Five Love Languages is a book and series of work from author Gary Chapman. Words of Affirmation is one of the five ways that we receive and express love with others. If this is how you express love, this is also how you would mostly likely prefer to receive love.

Words of Affirmation in Action

The most memorable way I’ve received recognition at the workplace is when I was given a thank you gift that spoke my love language, Words of Affirmation. A colleague gave me a meaningful card with a handwritten note that expressed her gratitude for my work on a project of hers. Along with it, she gave me a bag of chocolate-covered peanuts, one of my favorite treats. She tapped into how I express my love and appreciation to others, especially through sending out thank-you cards with handwritten notes of gratitude.

Who can you affirm with your words and make a difference in their world? Share a comment with us below.

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For more resources, see our Library topic Spirituality in the Workplace.

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Janae Bower is an inspirational speaker, award-winning author and training consultant. She founded Finding IT, a company that specializes in personal and professional development getting to the heart of what matters most. She started Project GratOtude, a movement to increase gratitude in people’s lives.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

According to a recent email from The World Grace Project, Scientists now believe 70% of the Universe is comprised of Dark Energy.” Maybe that Dark Energy manifests itself as FEAR in people, in all its forms!”

When I read this I was shocked and saddened. I also believe that today, Valentine’s Day, is a special day in which the energy is reversed to be 70% comprised of Light Energy, the Energy of Love.

What does the Energy of Love look like? It is one in which the vibration of our thoughts, actions and beliefs are raised to the highest level of energy, which is love. We think in love, we act in love, we express love.

Here is a short movie that expresses the power of love wonderfully. Click to watch.

This weekend we experienced the energy of love in our home. My husband, John and I, hosted our 11^th annual Valentine’s Day party for couples. As John and I have been preparing and planning for this special day for months, our energy has been rising together. It’s a huge act of love for the two of us to host an extravagant party for the 25 couples that attended. We go all out with food, drinks and our yearly theme. This year’s was a “Valentine Affair to Remember,” a formal black and white gala with a surprise twist. Amongst our friends was a couple we hired as actors to help us stage a surprise murder mystery. We pulled it off and at some point during the party the couples became suspects and detectives trying to figure out the mystery. After the mystery was solved, we had another couple teach some ballroom dancing for the couples that wanted to learn some elegant dance moves.

At one point during the party, I just stopped to feel, hear and see the energy of love rising in our home. The laughter, smiles and couples connecting expressed love in a way we had hoped when planning for the party. The positive energy was incredibly contagious and I didn’t want to miss out on it. Our hope is that each of the 25 couples who were part of this party, will take this energy of love that was felt and expressed that night to their own lives and share it with those closest in their lives. As they do so, those around them will feel the loving energy rising and the dark energy dissipating.

How do you express the energy of love to others? I would love to hear how and be inspired by your actions. Share a comment with us below. My hope is that you too will take the energy of love and be a light in this sometimes dark world!

For more resources, see our Library topic Spirituality in the Workplace.

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Janae Bower is an inspirational speaker, award-winning author and training consultant. She founded Finding IT, a company that specializes in personal and professional development getting to the heart of what matters most. She started Project GratOtude, a movement to increase gratitude in people’s lives.

If I knew then what I know now, I really wonder if I would have chosen this path to live my dreams. Today is the 10-year anniversary of my personal and spiritual growth business, Finding IT. I have a picture of me on the exact day that I left corporate America with my box full of hope and my heart full of dreams. I wrote on the box “Outta here Metris. Feb. 5, 2002 at 3:05pm.” I’m holding a ribbon that says “Spirit award” in one hand and my other hand is in a thumbs up position. I look so young (and was young 30 years old). I see the passion in my smile and the naiveté in my eyes.

I remember that day as if it was yesterday. I was put into a situation in which I had to choose to fight for my dream. I didn’t have to physcically leave my job in corporate America, but I knew in my heart and soul that I needed to spiritually leave. On Valentine’s Day, I sent cards to my network and this is what I had to say.

It’s Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2002

And I want to celebrate this day with you!

For years I’ve been busy preparing to follow my heart

And today living my dream full-time is what I’ll start.

A training and consulting company – InnerConnections my name

Focusing on spirit in the workplace will be my “claim to fame.”

So thank you for helping me feel so blessed, fulfilled and whole

Because in some special way you’ve helped me achieve this goal.

After many years of trying to focus on bringing spirit in the workplace and struggling, I changed my focus to living out my spirituality in my work, in whatever work I was doing. That is when I changed my business name to Finding IT and refocused my energies. I gave up what “IT” had to look like and instead let whatever IT was meant to be come to me.

I was recently inspired to enter a national video contest to share your expertise through Brendon Burchard’s Experts Academy. This was a perfect opportunity for me to share how I’ve lived out my own spirituality through my life’s work with this business.

www.janaebower.com/celebration

Making this video was overwhelming (yes somewhat in the production of it), but mostly in what the video represented to me. When you see the video and see me talking about one of my books that I wrote this past 10 years, what you see is the finished product. What you don’t see is all the heart and soul of the behind-the-scenes unfinished product and unfinished person that it really took to get to that finished product. What you don’t see is the faith that’s it taken me to endure this past 10 years through all the obstacles and heartaches. What you don’t see is the countless hours of pure heart and soul that’s gone into the business.

What I hope you do see is the incredible gratitude I feel for how pursuing my life’s work has been one of the most incredible blessings of my life. I’ve grown so much spiritually by having to live out my faith in whatever work I was being called to do.

Like the quote above, by realizing the dream I’ve realized who I’ve become as a person. My hope is that you will too realize who you are as you go for the big dreams in your life.

Join me in celebrating the journey of our BIG dreams. www.janaebower.com/celebration.

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For more resources, see our Library topic Spirituality in the Workplace.

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Janae Bower is an inspirational speaker, award-winning author and training consultant. She founded Finding IT, a company that specializes in personal and professional development getting to the heart of what matters most. She started Project GratOtude, a movement to increase gratitude in people’s lives.

The entry is a perfect transition that links my last series, with the A-Z theme, along with my new upcoming series focused on growing closer with God.

The idea for this poem and some of the names of God were inspired from one of my son’s lessons in his family formation program from our church.

God is…

Awesome and awestruck with us

Blessings which overflow

Creator of all good

Devoted to us

Everywhere we are in everything we do

Faithful to our greatest dreams

Glorious and grace filled

Holy, holy, holy

I am that I am

Just and just wanting to be with us

Kindhearted, giving us hearts of kindness

Loving us deeply and devoutly

Marvelous in all his acts of goodness

Never-ending is his quest to love us

Open-minded extending open arms

Patiently and persistently pursing us

Quietly waiting for us

Righteous, showing us the right way

Soulful, wanting to fill our soul

Teacher of our most important lessons

Understanding, always seeking to understand us

inValuable gift of heart and hope

Wise beyond us and wise within us

eXcellent at helping us excel

Yours truly who wants to be truly yours

Zealous for our love

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For more resources, see our Library topic Spirituality in the Workplace.

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Janae Bower is an inspirational speaker, award-winning author and training consultant. She founded Finding IT, a company that specializes in personal and professional development getting to the heart of what matters most. She started Project GratOtude, a movement to increase gratitude in people’s lives.

As we close out the year soon, I too am closing this spirituality case study series with this last example of Gary Zukav’s work. You might recognize him as the author of the bestseller The Seat of the Soul. What I’m going to share with you comes from the book The Heart of the Soul: Emotional Awareness.

What I appreciate about his insights along with co-author Linda Francis are some different perspectives around becoming more emotionally aware. They describe emotional awareness as becoming aware of everything you feel at every moment. In order to do this we need to become aware of our inner landscape of emotions and feelings inside of us, our external landscape of how these emotions are manifesting to the world and then becoming a detached observer of it all.

Our greater goal to becoming more emotionally aware is our own spiritual health. According to the authors, the goal of spiritual growth calls us to create a new and deeper understanding of who we are and what our purposes are. One way that we can grow is to learn how to own and claim our authentic power, which is the alignment of our personality with our soul. We can only do this when we are fully engaged in the present moment. This is “the longest journey that we will make it life is from your head to your heart.”

How they describe our emotions in terms of our energy system was very interesting. They believe that our emotions tell us how our energy is being processed. As our energy leaves our body, it gives us messages or signals from our soul. “Every emotion offers you information about you that’s important.” If you ignore the emotion, you ignore essentially soulful information. The more important the message thus the stronger the emotion you will feel.

“Any painful emotion means you are acting, speaking and thinking in fear and doubt.” When you don’t have painful emotions you are acting, speaking and thinking in the opposite with love and trust.

Let me give you an example of what happened to me while I was reading this book in which applies what I was learning. I had a painful emotion, this headache right above my left eye that lasted for a week or so. The energy center is by the forehead, often referred to as the third eye or 6th energy center. This energy center allows you to see beyond the physical into the universal. “It allows you to know the intentions of others, even if they do not express them.” As I was reading this I wondered where this was coming from and whose intentions might this be from. A few days later I come to find out that my husband was having the worst week of his 15 year career at this company. We discussed and prayed about his situation. I noticed how the pain began to lessen as did his stressful situation.

A simple and profound way that they described the concept of stress I really liked. They said that all stress really is is resistance to your life. The more resistance we have for things in our lives, the more stress we feel. Ever notice how when things are good it’s like we are going with the flow? When we resist the flow of life is when we bring stress to our lives. I’ll be doing the same thing two different days, one day I’ll go with the flow and the other day I resist it. Both give me different outcomes. The first is based in good energy processed with love and trust, the later is when our energy is being processed in fear and doubt.

As you reflect on this past year, think about how emotionally aware you’ve been and how stressful of a year it’s been. I encourage you to use what our soul is communicating with us, our emotions through our energy systems, to make 2012 a year in which you don’t resist but persist in the flow of your life.

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For more resources, see our Library topic Spirituality in the Workplace.

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Janae Bower is an inspirational speaker, award-winning author and training consultant. She founded Finding IT, a company that specializes in personal and professional development getting to the heart of what matters most. She started Project GratOtude, a movement to increase gratitude in people’s lives.

This season give your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent,
tolerance. To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To
every child, a good example. To all, charity. For Christmas is
not a time or a season but a state of mind. To cherish peace and
good will, to be plenteous in mercy, this is the real spirit of
Christmas. ~ Oren Arnold

Our wish for you is that the spirit of the season carry on throughout
the year. Sharing, loving, giving, are not intended to be put away
and simply pulled out once a year like lights and ornaments. Rather
that they are prevalent and contagious in your daily life. We believe
that the greatest gift is not found in a store nor under a tree, but in
the kindness and love given to others year round.

Soon the new year will be here and with it the perfect time to share
our appreciation. As a song from the movie White Christmas shares
“If you’re worried and can’t sleep, count your blessings instead of
sheep.”

Thank you for reading our blog in 2011. May your blessings
be abundant in 2012.

For more resources, see our Library topic Spirituality in the Workplace.

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Yahweh is another name for God. According to the article The Names of God a study by J. Hampton Keathley, III “Yahweh (YHWH): Comes from a verb which means “to exist, be.” This, plus its usage, shows that this name stresses God as the independent and self-existent God of revelation and redemption (Gen. 4:3; Ex. 6:3 (cf. 3:14); 3:12).

Here is a sampling of some attributes, quotes and reflections on God.

Attributes

• Almighty
• Benevolent
• Counselor
• everlasting life
• Glorious
• Hope
• Holy
• Love
• Light
• Just
• Majesty
• Rock
• Shield
• Strength

Quotes

I want to know God’s thoughts…the rest are details. – Albert Einstein

Faith can move mountains, but don’t be surprised if God hands you a shovel. ~ Unknown Author

Your job is to clarify what your passions are. God’s job is to organize how they will be realized.” – from The Passion Test

God is in the details. – Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

God has created us to love and to be loved, and this is the beginning of prayer, to know that He loves me and that I have been created for greater things. – Mother Theresa

Reflections

Yogananda said that the only thing we can possibly give God is our love. Imagine our actually having something to give that God cares about! “The only thing lacking to Him is our love. That is what God wants from us: our love; our trust in Him; our joy in His infinite joy.” (from Essence of Self Realization)

Mother Theresa delivered a similar message. She relayed that Jesus appeared to her and helped her understand that when he said “I thirst,” He was telling us that God wants us to love Him in the same way He loves us. God yearns for our love!

St. Augustine said “Deus sitit sitiri.” That is “God thirsts to be thirsted for.”

God is standing by waiting for us to love Her. Through this, we can enter into Divine Bliss. – Excerpt from the December 2011 The Expanding Light, Ananda’s Spiritual Retreat for Meditation Yoga and Health

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For more resources, see our Library topic Spirituality in the Workplace.

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Janae Bower is an inspirational speaker, award-winning author and training consultant. She founded Finding IT, a company that specializes in personal and professional development getting to the heart of what matters most. She started Project GratOtude, a movement to increase gratitude in people’s lives.