Welcome to this edition of Parallel Times, where we'll explore
why joy and gratitude are your levers for changing the world and being resilient in
the face of the world's current challenges.
My name is Melanie Rubin with ParallelTimes.info.
Thank you for joining us.
And I'm with Sherry Fox, who's my dear friend and one of the most powerful manifesters that
I know.
Today, we'll be talking about how joy and gratitude are keys to manifesting what you
want to create, such as a healthy parallel society.
Sherry, thank you for being here.
Thank you for having me.
Yes, it's delightful.
How about we start by you telling us a little bit about Together Source and about your work?
Together Source is a collective of businesses that operate through the center that I own
and actually extended businesses as well.
And we are working together collectively to share our gifts with each other and with
the community and to empower a diverse community, which is healing.
The optimal healing tool is to create connection and love.
It's great, and just to add a little bit, Sherry founded this organization in 2006.
And what I've seen is that it has hosted a steady stream of just hundreds, I don't know,
maybe thousands of people who've moved through that business, who have experienced all kinds
of personal growth and increased health, greater spiritual understanding, and who've
just had a lot of fun.
There's a lot of fun that happens at that place, fairs, dance parties, festivals, celebrations.
So it used to be called the source, now called Together Source, has been really a saving
grace for the community and of joy and refuge and sanity and serenity for many people.
It's also a very beautiful place to visit.
So and Sherry herself is a very skilled practitioner, healing practitioner and facilitator of many
modalities, including voice dialogue, family constellations, radical gratitude, relationship
enhancement, kinesiology, emotional freedom technique, and many more.
She's constantly studying.
She works with individuals, couples, and groups.
So in her work, I've seen Sherry use gratitude and joy for manifestation.
And she's also just one of the most fun people to be around.
And I consider her a center of joy and gratitude.
And that's what we're going to be talking about today.
So and the sources, together sources website, can you give that to us right now and we'll
repeat it again at the end?
Sure, it's TogetherSource.com.
It's T-O-G-E-T-H-E-R-S-O-U-R-C-E.com.
Great.
Thank you.
So I'm going to give a little preview of our topic and then Sherry's going to actually
lead us through a little experience.
What I see is that a person's beliefs are like the operating system for their life.
What you believe is what you manifest.
And that's why this is the first topic in the checklist and blueprint for leaving the
matrix and joining Parallel Society, which you can download for free from the homepage
of the parallel times.info website.
So for example, if you believe you will always lack resources, say, you'll create the circumstances
that make that be so.
And therefore, in order to change our world, we actually have to change our beliefs.
Otherwise, we can keep re-enslaving ourselves.
And joy and gratitude are key levers to changing our beliefs.
And they're also the keys to living a happy life, no matter what's going on outside in
the world, which we know is pretty crazy right now and we'll get more soon into how joy and
gratitude can help you change your world.
But since our focus is on creating a parallel society that is new in the world, how we manifest
in the role that our beliefs play and the role that joy and gratitude play in shifting
our beliefs are very important topics.
So it's a big subject, but instead of talking about it in the abstract, can you start us
off by giving us a little experience of gratitude?
I would be delighted.
Let's just first breathe and say thank you with each breath.
Breathe and say thank you.
And I'll just let this happen for a few moments.
Breathing and saying thank you.
And notice where your mind goes, what thoughts you have when you say thank you, how it feels
in your body when you say thank you.
And continue to breathe and say thank you.
I'd like to start out a little bit with looking at a part of ourselves as if you can look
in the mirror.
So you can close your eyes or look in the mirror or imagine yourself and I want you to see
a part of you that has a strong need.
So part of you that wants something, that needs something, needs a breakthrough, that
needs a healing, that needs love, needs money, acceptance.
And I want you to look at that part of you the way you would look at another who had
that need.
I want you to see that part of you as if it was a child or a creature, a pet.
And I want you to thank that part of you with all your heart for expressing this need for
having this yearning.
And give that part of you as much appreciation and gratitude as possible, like you're filling
it with light, like you're completely embracing that part of you.
Continue to say thank you and breathe.
I want you to look again as if you're looking in the mirror and I want you to see a part
of you that you are proud of.
A part of you that has been a superpower of yours or something that you have accomplished,
great things with or that you feel really good about yourself.
And I want you to honor that part of you now that is confident, at least in one area.
And bow to that part of you with gratitude.
The way you would if you looked at another person who possessed that power with deep
respect say thank you and breathe.
Thank you and breathe.
And I'd like to look at one more part of you and that is a part of you that is a future
you.
This is a part of you that achieves the success that you're looking to create right now.
This is a part of you that knows what you're made of, knows what you have to let go of,
what you need to surrender or shift.
And it's you on the other side in fulfillment.
And let that part of you give you support now.
Thank that part of you that is your future you, that wise self.
Thank that part of you and give your commitment to yourself, to that future you with all your
heart.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I like your dream come true.
Because in truth, we don't create anything new from our past.
We create actually from our future.
And then just come into total appreciation of the total you, include your precious body.
And once again, breathe and say thank you.
Breathe and say thank you.
And when you're ready, gently open your eyes.
Thank you.
I feel better already.
It's really interesting because for me, it's all about whether I will be able to support
this world somehow in shifting into parallel society.
That's the future self that I want to see myself in, that the world is healed and we're
on the other side of it.
And it starts with us, doesn't it, we have to believe that we can get there.
We have to see ourselves there.
We have to be grateful for being there.
The fear and trembling about not being able to get there doesn't serve us in getting there.
And we let ourselves be led by that part of us that's already there.
So this is a great demonstration of how manifestation starts with living into the place you want
to be.
And maybe people also felt as I went through this exercise that you were guiding that as
they started establishing themselves in gratitude, that their heart calmed down, their breathing
calmed down, their nervous system calmed.
And gratitude is this giant lever for shifting us in the moment and it re-regulates our system,
which the HeartMath people have proven, the HeartMath Institute.
And we humans are these gigantic resonators, like big magnets attracting from the infinite
possibilities in the universe what it is that we are intending to create.
But if we're resonating at the frequency of fear and distress, we're likely to attract
more of that.
And if we're resonating at the frequency of gratitude and joy, then we're likely to attract
more of that.
So can you talk a little bit from your experience about when was it back in 2016, I guess, that
you really started to get into this gratitude work and you've completely dove into it.
Can you share a little bit about why you decided to do that and how that has all unfolded for
you personally and with your work with others?
Yes, absolutely.
I owned this wellness center and I was having a very hard time with a divorce, with a great
deal of disappointment.
I was feeling a listlessness and a lack of joy and a lack of capacity to really get the
blessings that were around me, very heartbroken.
And I knew that I had a lot of potential beauty and grace around me and someone handed me
a book on gratitude.
It's the magic and I took it through the 28 day process and I found that a lot of stuff
shifted for me very dramatically.
And then I took it through again, the 28 day process that's in that book.
And the conflicts that I had with the ex seemed to completely disappear.
Some of the exercises that I used when we were dividing assets allowed there to be a
pathway, like a light that just bore through the conflict.
Just so many other things unfolded out of that.
I would say that there were countless blessings.
Writing down exactly a number of money that I would like to receive and it boom landing
in my lap, $30,000.
Someone gave me $30,000 and that was something I'd written on a gratitude check and was grateful
for.
And countless opportunities.
I started a group and I do that group every week since 2016 and I saw people in that group
change their lives.
Yeah, and a personal experience that I had was that Sherry handed me a copy of one of
these books, the magic, well, the book, one of the copies she had.
And it was right after my mother died rather suddenly.
And when you have a beloved person, even if you have a complicated relationship with them
as I did with my mother, when they suddenly die without much warning, it's a big deal.
And I was pretty upside down for at least six months after her passing.
And it was actually the gratitude work that got me through because every morning I would
roll out of bed and before even getting dressed, I would go for a walk around the neighborhood
and do the gratitude practices.
And it was the lifeline that kept me grounded and that work has been a lifeline ever since
and a source of joy and of being able to shift perspective.
So in the world that we're in now where there's so much distress that we have coming to us
in our inboxes about what's going on out there, being able to shift and be in gratitude
for even the difficult things is this invaluable skill.
So can you talk about that a little bit that the paradox of being able to be grateful for
the things that are not our preferences and how to alchemize those so that they become
sources of power and growth and even joy.
Yes, absolutely.
There are some exercises that are in the magic that are focused on challenging relationships,
challenging situations, some struggles with any number of things.
And we, being the group that keeps meeting and they won't even let me cancel the group
when I go away.
So they have to keep having it.
So we have substitutes and it just keeps going on.
That is something that has moved people through the worst obsessive compulsive disorders,
health issues, relationships, struggles, family issues, great and grave disappointments in
their lives.
Just this year, somebody brought another gratitude book.
People bring different exercises to the group.
They brought 40 days to a miraculous life and that is a radical gratitude practice where
at least 10 minutes a day, you say you're grateful for everything that just appears.
And that may be things that you don't necessarily feel very grateful for at first glance.
And you're not even trying to figure out why you feel grateful for it, you just say it.
And it is my experience that I relaxed more deeply into myself than I've ever been relaxed
into myself.
I suddenly saw myself as a being who's living this experience in the fullest sense of deep
acceptance.
And I would also wake up with shadow memories, material stuff that I had packed away and
tried to forget.
And I would go, oh gosh, this is a set of stuff that I don't want to be grateful for,
but I'm going to look around at it and say I'm grateful for this.
I'm grateful for these feelings about it.
It feels that that radical gratitude practice has brought me into deeper wholeness, into
greater resolution to be the person that's an awakener here.
It's also brought me into the field of what is not comfortable in this life that can be
changed and how to change it.
It gives me power again.
So it seems like it's counterintuitive.
Like if you're grateful for things that are devastating to you or heart wrenching to you.
And I'm not saying that you should be grateful for something so tragic, like a giant loss,
but you can be grateful around it, around what you've learned from it or your own responses
or many things about it.
So if you're capable of being grateful for that, then you have more power.
Just comes in.
Yeah.
What I've noticed through this whole COVID period is that it's been the gratitude that
has pulled me through because there are a lot of things that I'm not grateful for, but
I'm finding even in the things that I didn't think I was grateful for, something to be
grateful for, it just keeps reorienting me in the direction that I need to go.
I'm sorry I've lost these friends.
I'm so grateful I've connected with this new group of people that are so like-minded and
we have developed this deep connection through this time where it was really hard that I
lost that job because I wouldn't get vaccinated and it opened all these other doors of opportunities
that I never would have had if I had stayed where I was.
So learning to play with that, almost like a game, making it into a game, what is there
that is being revealed in front of me and how can the gratitude help me see what's being
revealed instead of resisting what I don't prefer or how can I live into what the new
opportunity is that's presented.
So I feel like gratitude is sort of like this rainbow bridge into the future if you choose
to walk on it.
And we had played this game called the Mahalila, which is actually an ancient game from India
that our dear friend Zayda brought from Brazil.
And it's a spiritual game, non-denominational, but to teach people about the nature of their
connection with God and with life.
And there was one quote that I wrote down which Zayda actually said when we were playing
that game, which was so on point and made me actually want to have this conversation with
you do a recording.
And she said, joy is the, I'm reading it, joy is the fruit of gratitude.
If you have empathy, you forgive.
If you forgive, you're grateful.
If you're grateful, you have joy.
And pure joy allows you to access higher dimensions of consciousness.
So joy is like the doorway into higher consciousness.
And I feel like in order for us to get through this period and create this new world, we
have to start accessing different understandings than we've had before.
I guess it was Einstein that said we can't fix a problem with the same consciousness
that created it.
So we have to start living into higher understandings.
And I was just so fascinated as we were playing the Mahalila game to make the connection that
it's joy ultimately that allows you to access that higher consciousness and gratitude is
the lever for accessing the joy.
So that was like a big epiphany for me.
And I'm just wondering if you have thoughts around that also because that was just last
weekend we were playing that game with our friends.
Yeah, we have to be defrosted to have joy.
The trauma can be pulled out of our bodies and relaxed away.
We need to be in safety to have joy.
And that is the place of connection.
I'm in a belief that we're being divided and we don't have to buy that.
We, you know, many people are sharing different viewpoints and with the kind of energy that
divides that gets people to be scared of each other, that gets people to not recognize
our commonality or our deepest values or the love that we have for each other.
And it is my opinion that we need each other's viewpoints.
We need the whole gamut and we need to not be afraid of each other.
And so that ability to forgive the illusions that people have been bought into ourselves
and included and to come into our hearts is the power.
I think that's way more powerful than having a vendetta.
Not that you shouldn't hold your truth close to your heart, but that we could get to the
table and talk about those truths when we're feeling connected.
And we can make a difference when we exude that appreciation of love for ourselves and
we're in joy.
People want to feel that safety and connection.
And that's more powerful.
Yes.
And one of the things I've been most amazed with, I mean, as you know, I've been working
with the HeartMath work for about 10 years now, right around the same time when we started
doing this gratitude work together, that gratitude is the fastest way to shift your whole nervous
system.
When you focus on something you're grateful for and literally feel yourself breathing
that as if you were breathing it right through your heart, it very quickly shifts your whole
nervous system and all of the physiological systems in your body into a state that the
therapists call regulation, which feels peaceful and feels joyful.
So gratitude is physiologically proven to be good for your health.
So the other thing that I've noticed just on a very practical level is that in addition
to doing all this work with gratitude and working with individuals and couples and groups,
that you also create a lot of opportunities for joy in the community.
Parties, dances, concerts, festivals, fairs, celebrations, potlucks.
And so, I mean, and I know you run a community center, which has resources and gathering
rooms and that sort of thing.
And it hasn't, it's been my observation that it's not the room or the facility that has
made it possible for you to do these things, but your pure dedication to doing those things.
And so, I wonder if you would speak a little bit about the importance of creating opportunities
for joy and celebration and how people can do that no matter who they are, whether they
have a community center or they don't.
That is a good question.
I would say that, I would say that through fear, we get more contracted.
We pull deeper in when we perceive that somebody outside of us has hurt us or that life has
treated us unfairly.
We become much smaller.
And I guess I'm going to give you more of an energetic response to that.
What I have discovered is that I am here.
I'm alive.
I'm full of light.
I have authority in this domain, which is life.
And the thoughts of harm and betrayal and the experience of the pressure of fear, the restriction
into slavery, kind of masks me to hide behind a falseness, and then I'm sort of trapped
in it if I'm in hate and retribution.
I have been caught, been caught in a particular web that is not authentically me, which doesn't
mean I don't get angry.
I guess I believe that I have the right and the authority here from just being in this
gratitude practice for a while to shine my light, to expand my, expand and intensify
my vibration and that every cell in my body is connected to everybody else's hearts,
cells, vibrations to the light.
And that is my authentic self.
All of us live potentially from our authentic selves and we become more, more bright and
we take up more space, more energetic and dimensional space and that affects everything.
Every relationship.
So would you say that the gatherings or celebrations are just one of the types of outward expression
of that shining your light and taking up space in the world and connecting with others who
are shining their light and taking up space in the world and being their authentic selves?
Yeah I think that it's a consequence and it's an opportunity to transmit a vibrational
frequency that wakes up people to their own true light as well.
And different people might have a different result if they knew that they had the authority
to be their own vibrant light and to not be contracted.
But for me, it's me and a whole group of other people that are collaborating, it seems like
a consequence of deepened and profound love for every fiber of our being and the desire
to touch others that are wanting that frequency as well.
So what, I don't know if advice is the right word, but what would you share with folks
out there who are wanting to create more joy in their lives and to use that as a magnetic
attractor to manifest what they want in their own lives or in the world?
What suggestions or thoughts would you want to distill in for them?
I would say that that requires healing and that healing is doing everything that occurs
to you.
Not just one thing, not looking for something outside of you, but becoming your own healing
instrument.
The body is a healing instrument, so getting into it and crying or weeping or meditation
or feeling certain things, releasing or getting involved in something or other and being intimate
with yourself, vulnerably with your heart, becoming attuned to your heart.
All of that is whatever you need to do to be well and to be connected.
I have a little exercise that I do, I have several actually, I have lots of little exercises
that I do because I've been leading this group since 2016, but I do have one that I could
recommend.
Yeah, that was kind of where I was coming to because I think that for people who are
not familiar, this can seem like a lot or a little bit obscure.
How does someone begin?
If they're maybe not going to engage a whole, maybe they are going to engage a whole trauma,
healing process and different modalities and who only knows what they're going to engage.
If they're just going to start with a simple gratitude practice like I did after my mother
died, it was a five minute walk every morning, it changed my life.
What would be one thing somebody could start with?
Things have a way of leading from one thing to the next.
What is that practice or would you like to lead us through another practice?
I think I could lead us through a different practice.
I do believe that just listing gratitude, just walking with gratitude, not even having
to think about it and saying, thank you, thank you, thank you for 100 steps or for a whole
walk could be a part of that.
But this is specific to the feeling of connection that I would like to actually offer as a little
exercise.
I'd like you to think of somebody that you care about.
I want you to imagine or hear them say, I love you just the way you are.
You don't have to edit it even if you're like, I don't know if they really do.
Just imagine them saying, I love you just the way you are.
Then imagine yourself saying, I love you just the way you are.
And then think of somebody else.
Maybe this is somebody who you're not totally connected with.
It's not terrible, just somebody who you're not totally connected with.
And once again, imagine them saying, I love you just the way you are.
And imagine yourself saying, to them, I love you just the way you are.
And then pick a third person, maybe again, a higher gradient, somebody who you're pretty
certain may judge you or you judge them.
And I want you to imagine or feel them saying, I love you just the way you are.
And imagine yourself saying, I love you just the way you are.
We could go on, and then you could spend another 10 or 15 minutes going through all the different
people that come to mind.
And you could have an experience with that and see what that does.
If you tried it without, with just curiosity, without any resistance, you just tried it.
You could have an experience with it and see what happens.
I'm curious, Melanie, how that is for you.
I think I'm going to have to try it when I'm not in the midst of doing a program so that
I can give it everything.
Sure.
Honestly.
Because it's a big thing to go through gradients of people, especially those who one might have
had challenges with.
Or if you start to take it into, again, what we're seeing in the world when I start to
think of the people who are doing things that I consider horrific, how do I use this so
that I have compassion or, I don't know, we're just fit in that idea.
So it's an interesting, virtual exploration.
Yeah, I don't know.
I haven't tried it with the people that I think are pulling the strings, but I have
tried it with people that have offended me that might be holding different values.
Like they're personal to me.
And because I've done this again and again with different groups, there is often feedback
of giant relief.
And some people have said, I didn't realize that I could decide that.
There's a little exercise that people use when they want to manifest money.
And that is to enjoy their own company and the company of others.
And so it's like actually perceiving ourselves through different people's eyes with love
and appreciation is actually a relatively common manifestation tool.
So to really hold that.
And it's really, it occurred to me at one point, it's none of my business if people
don't love me just the way I am.
It finally unhooked my desire to get approval at every turn.
At the cost of myself, it unhooked that.
Right.
And it seems like if one is not at risk of concern about others' opinion, that's tremendous
empowerment because so much of what's happening to people right now is because of fear of
what somebody can take from them or what somebody thinks of them or all of that.
It's, you know, virtue signaling is all about that.
So right, the incredible psychological, spiritual, energetic range of movement you would have
if you truly didn't care what anybody thought about you, which doesn't mean you wouldn't
care about people, it just means you wouldn't be concerned about others' opinions.
Yeah.
And also, and also receiving the best part of people, you know, having the authority
over your relationships enough that you receive only the best from them, which may mean that
you don't have anything to do with them, but that when you do, it's only the best and that
you can decide that as much as possible.
It's a good idea.
Yeah.
So you know, these are, I mean, you've been working with this so deeply for a long time
that what you're bringing forth represents tremendous potential with this radical gratitude
system.
And I would encourage people just to start with something really simple and just see
how powerful it can be and try these other things too.
But even just starting with three things in the morning, you know, what am I, what's one
thing I'm grateful for today?
Why am I grateful for it?
And you know, think about three things and then be bold enough to think about something
that wasn't your preference and what can you be grateful about with that is it's revolutionary.
So I am grateful for you introducing me to all of that back when, 2014.
And so if people want to reach you, they can reach you at TogetherSource.com.
Yes, or my website, just SherryKFox.com.
Okay.
And that is C-H-A-R-E-Y-K Fox like an animal F-O-X.com.
Yes.
And Sherry does work online as well as in person.
And the groups that she has, people zoom in from all over the place to participate in
her groups.
So I've been a happy participant in many zoomed groups with Sherry during COVID.
And also want to announce that at Parallel Times where we now have t-shirts and you can
find that on our website, paralleltimes.info.
And please join us again at the next episode.
And we're starting with this because your beliefs and your joy and your gratitude is
so important for you changing your own world and the world that we have around us.
And so I thank you, Sherry, for being willing to have this conversation today and share
all of, well, just a little bit of your experience, but a little bit of your very deep experience
with the Tharkroot.
That the t-shirt behind you, is that one of the t-shirt designs?
That is the back of this t-shirt.
That is a great shirt.
That's a wonderful set of messages, especially the together font.
Yes.
Yep.
I thought it was funny that we were both coming up with together tagline separately at the
same time.
It's so important, right?
That connection is so important.
So thank you very much.
And we'll hope to see you all soon.
Thank you, Madden.
Thank you so much.
Logs, log lands.
Thanks for doing what you're doing.
You're most welcome.
Mui and horkhuntry.
Yes, and you as well.
All right.
Blessings.
See you soon.