Colleague and friend, Lori Hops PhD and I put our heads and hearts together and after many hours of collaboration, we created the Album “Light.” 

This album contains positive words of affirmation accompanied by the sound of Himalayan Singing bowls. The affirmations are designed for your health and wellbeing, to overcome blocks and obstacles in your life. 

“Light” has tracks with both words and music, words alone, or just music. Find your favorites, to inspire your unique light. Listen to the entire album at no cost, or purchase it as an electronic album for download. Photo by Lori Hops

Click here to sample the Album

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Light

by Greg Carpenter & Lori Chortkoff Hops

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	Light: Affirmations with Singing Bowls 00:00 / 05:14

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	1.	Light: Introduction 06:14
	2.	Light: Affirmations with Singing Bowls 05:14
	3.	Light: Affirmations with Voice Alone 04:48
	4.	Light: Affirmations with Setup Phrases and Singing Bowls 04:46
	5.	Light: Affirmations with Setup Phrases and just Voice 04:23
	6.	Light: A Meditative Soundscape 17:10

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About This Album

“Light” contains positive words of affirmation accompanied by the sound of Himalayan Singing bowls. Affirmations are designed for your health and wellbeing, to overcome blocks and obstacles in your life. “Light” has tracks with both words and music, words alone, or just music. Find your favorites, to inspire your unique light.

“Light” is for your personal use. You can repeat the affirmations aloud or silently in your mind. Or just listen to the words and music. You don’t need to focus intently. The introduction track has suggestions on how to calm your body while you listen to the album, using gentle movement.

This album is for informational and entertainment purposes only, and is not providing health care advise. Please seek guidance from your health care professional team should you need assistance.

Liminality - What is "no longer" and "not yet"

Back in 2019, I attended the Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology conference in New Mexico.  It was an incredible five days of learning, connecting and experiencing such a vibrant energy of grace and love.  I also attended Joan Borysenko day long-preconference workshop on Neuroscience and Spirituality.   

In one part of her presentation she talked about the critical time in our life of Liminality.  She sees this as that state where we are in between what is "no longer" and what is "not yet."  

I have experienced my many losses in the past four years.  Centainly way beyond what I could have imagined. 

This space in time, between what is "no longer" and what is "yet to be," can be a great time of heart ache and a deep opportunity for introspection and growth.  This is my current reality as I deal with grief and loss.  I have discovered through several significant losses that grief can be over "what was lost" in the past and what you imagined "was to be" in the future. 

You would think that the death of my wife and father within a six week period  would have drilled into my mind the uncertainty and unpredictability of life (preparing me for yet another loss).  Yet, I am a romantic, idealist and incureably hopeful.   What is that old joke, "If you want to make God laugh, tell her your plans."  

In Buddhism, there is this idea that attachment to our expectations is the source of suffering.  In Intention Tapping or Intention Energy Process developed by Steve Wells, we say that it is our emotional attachments that lead us away from accepting what is.  

These emotinal attachments/entanglements with the past and future can result in the blockage and flow of energy.  It isn't about strong arming our way through our feelings and letting them go.  It is about tuning in so we can let in the feelings that go along with acceptance and return back to a state of energetic flow and balance.

Facing a most recent loss, I must embrace what is no longer and find a way to grieve, be kind  to myself and resilient as I take one step forward at a time, uncertain of what is yet to be (discovering that is very hard for me).  

I am finding there is divine grace and stillness when I go inward and sit with the pain, sadness and even anger.  On a good day after journeying inward and sitting with what is "no longer" and all the feelings associated - there exists a stillness of mind and heart - a deep centeredness in my essence and divine grace.  On other days, there is very busy mind trying to wrap itself around "what is" and an often shouting outbursts of f-bombs as the only form of prayer that I can express.   

We need to journey inward to be able to journey outward in a more solid, somewhat knitted together and centered way.    

Author Jeff Brown put it this way,...

"It’s not about “letting it go.” It's about letting it in. It’s about letting it deep. It’s about letting it through. It's about being true to your feelings. It’s about giving your experiences the attention they deserve." 

In my work as a Intention Tapping therapist we call the result of this process returning energy back to flow and balance (for more information on Intention Tapping go to https://intentiontapping.com/).

It's about letting it in so we can release our attachments to our negative beliefs and stories we tell ourselves that block the flow of energy and keep us stuck.  

This is a place Joan Boreysenko calls Liminality (what is no longer and what is not yet), it is a place we often want to escape and pass through as quickly as possible.  

Imagine your are surrounded by a thick hedge row/bush containing long and sharp thorns.  There is no way over the top of this brush or around it.  You can only choose to go through it.  You may run fast as you can screaming to induce your adrenaline to numbly pass through.  You will feel less pain, but you will be a bloody mess on the other side.  Or you can mindfully pick your way through the brush feeling the pain of each prick and cut by the thorns as you pass through.  It will hurt, but you will come out on  the other side a wounded but more whole person.

In my own grief, I had been faithful to this process up to about seventy five percent walking carefully through the thorny bush.  Then, I wanted to just run, charging in my old High School football self, through the remaining grief.

My new breath prayer for dealing with this concept of Liminality is "wait and see."  As I am learning to embrace uncertainty and move forward in my life,  I am getting more comfortable with this "what is no longer" and "what is yet to be." 

May we find ways to release our emotional entanglements, restore our energy and self back to flow, and restore our connection to our divine essence.

(This was written back in January of 2025)

Beliefs: Conscious and Tacit

 

As I continue to read further into the book,  "Cured: The LIfe-Changing Science of Spontaneous Healing" by Dr. Jeffrey Riediger, I am amazed at the findins and wisdom. I was fortunate enough to be sitting at a table back in 2019 at the Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology with Dr. Rediger and Lissa Rankin MD. I discovered not only was he a psychiatrist but also had a Master of Divinity degree like me.

His book is a gem. In his chapter on "The Power of Placebo" he writes about the difference between Tacit knowledge/beliefs and Conscious knowledge/beliefs.

He postulates that there is more than just conscious beliefs at play with healing. He defines tacit beliefs as what we would call subconscious beliefs in Intention Tapping.

In many of the self-improvement and in performance psychology books, you will find an emphasis that focuses on conscious knowledge and beliefs. Conscious knowledge is explaining how to change a tire or reboot your computer. It is about consciously focusing your mind in a particular direction or way. This is important and good to teach.

Whenever I can consciously observe I have an emotional attachment to something it reminds me to apply IT, to breathe deeply or listen to brainwave entrainment music.

But ultimately, in Intention Tapping when we follow the breadcrumbs, we get to beliefs and knowledge at a tacit or subconscious level. Tacit knowledge is what we believe about ourselves, others, the world, and the Universe at a deeper level in the body, or subconscious nervous system.

Let's take a closer look at my love of playing tennis and winning. I have won first place in my league often enough to get attached to it (belief: I should win). Of course taking first place over opponents 20 years younger also creates an emotional attachment about the rejecting the aging process.

Using my conscious belief that age doesn't matter and that I am a good tennis player is why sometimes I can perform at a high level when playing in a match.

What I consciously believe is driving my perceptions. But when I mess up or get behind in the score, my subconscious or tacit beliefs begin to drive my perceptions and my mind and body get out of sync. I start telling myself what I need to do, instead of reacting and just hitting the ball.

I experience this as getting up in my head and getting out of flow. I'm sure it can be seen in the look on my face and body language.

Using my conscious knowledge and beliefs does help to manage my nervous system.

But I also discovered that working at deeper level by using a one word statement of "flow," addresses my monkey mind and helps me to return to flow in real time while playing match.

One could argue that my cue word is just using my conscious mind. But it feels deeper and more implicit. Something shifts without effort.

Intention Tapping is a wonderful way to access the subconscious mind or tacit knowledge. I am always amazed at its elegance, simplicity and depth.

I like the fact that it can be used on the fly while playing tennis, during my meditation practice or with another practitioner.

Dr. Rediger at the end of his book writes about the shifts people made in their lives. He states that what is common to the studies of spontaneous remissions was people healing their diets, immune systems, stress response and their identities (the way they see themselves in the world).

Healing in my mind doesn’t mean cure but rather wholeness. I witnessed my late wife experience healing of her mind/soul during her last week of life, while her body was not cured from cancer.

Exceptional cases of healing is not about blaming others who don't get better. The study is about empowering people to participate in the healing process.

Intention Tapping is a wonderful way to assist in that process.

Dr. Rediger suggests these areas for exploration.

-What are my triggers?

-What is the vision I have for my life?

-Who can I trust to counsel me in this situation?

-What "reward" can I give myself for following through?

-What will help me understand my value and worth and see the importance and goodness that I bring into the world?

-Why did I decide to make this change in my life?

I am currently reading a book by Jeffrey Rediger MD. "Cured: The Life-Changing Science of Spontaneous Healing.” I had met Dr. Rediger back in 2019 when we were sitting at the same banquet table at the Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology conference. He is a psychiatrist who also had an interest in healing and spirituality.

 I was eager to read his book and jumped around and scanned different chapters.

Dr. Rediger first went to seminary and then onto medical school. In seminary he was looking for answers and this is what one of his professor’s stated, "The goal is not necessarily to arrive at an absolute answer. The goal is to improve the quality of your questions. The quality of your questions determines the quality of your answers."

 Dr. Rediger goes on to state, "The questions we ask are the guiding light that moves us forward. If we're asking good questions, we very well might be moving in a good direction.”

 Here are three questions I find helpful when trying to dig deeper into what values are guiding your life.

 1. What is most important to you?

2. What do you most want to feel or experience?

3. What do you most want to avoid feeling or experiencing?

 Many of my counseling clients come in guided by what they want to avoid. Quite often they value security above all else. There is nothing wrong with that being your top value. But for many of my clients, they realized their life was driven by fear and what they didn't want to feel.

 Part of the goal of counseling is to “walk along side” my clients as they shift from avoiding what they don't want to experience and move to seeking what is truly most important to them.  The beginning point of this journey is asking the right questions.  What is the guiding lights and questions that are organizing your perceptions?

 Long ago I was exposed to this old adage during one of my trainings. 

 Our Perceptions yields our Behavior which yields our Destiny.

 We could reframe that and add to the beginning…

 “Our Questions yield our Perceptions which yields our Behavior which yields our Destiny.”