Remembering Dame Elisabeth Murdoch

The greatest of friends. Petrea King and Dame Elisabeth Murdoch

Dame Elisabeth Murdoch was a long time friend and supporter of the Quest for Life Foundation.

Always interested in the details of our work, the Dame generously assisted in the completion of the refurbishment of the Quest for Life Centre and was a regular donor both before and since its establishment.

Dame Elisabeth often welcomed Petrea into her home at Cruden Farm and they maintained regular correspondence over a span of more than twenty years.

The depth of Dame Elisabeth’s interest in the charities that she supported was unparalleled. She is greatly loved by all who have been touched by her presence. The example of her life will continue to inspire us to live with such humility, grace and goodness.

Rest in peace Dame Elisabeth.

“Dame Elisabeth has been a guiding light of generosity, humility and graciousness in my life. Her presence will continue to nourish and inspire me in my life and work. She set the bar for living a meaningful life at the highest level and I feel most privileged to have known and loved her.” Petrea King

Petrea King and Dame Elisabeth Murdoch at Cruden Farm

Petrea King and Dame Elisabeth Murdoch at Cruden Farm

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Why Doctors Die Differently

Over the past twenty seven years I have counselled many doctors when they have a diagnosis of cancer or other life threatening illness. Our conversations have not been about whether to embark upon rigorous treatments but on how to resolve painful issues from the past, heal their relationships and improve their quality, and sometimes quantity, of life through utilising complementary therapies. This article highlights a common perspective from medical colleagues.

A Doctor on How Physicians Face the End of Life

Petrea King

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A Day of Inspiration

Petrea King (image courtesy of: Coastal Media Productions)

This week, Petrea cast her magic spell over the 400+ guests at yesterday’s Day of Inspiration in Sydney supporting Tour de Cure 2012.  The incredible line up of speakers included;  International speaker: Phillip Hesketh, Awesome Foursome Olympian: Drew Ginn,  Glenn Capelli, super coach: Paul Roos, Susie Maroney and more. All beyond inspirational. With a gentle meditation that left everyone feeling calm and able to process the gift of  the day’s inspiration, Petrea wrapped up the days proceedings with the most beautiful message bringing everyone back into the space that matters the most – self!

PS A heavily pregnant Susie Maroney came on stage sharing with us that her third baby was due that very day! Before she came on stage she’d been doing star jumps to help things along!

There was an amazing artist present who captured the essence of each speaker. Petrea’s mind map is below. Just amazing!

Petrea's talk at the Day of Inspiration captured in images by Guy Downes

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Oneness Meditation

Petrea wanted to share these events with you:

An opportunity to settle the chatter in the mind and to connect you with your essence

Petrea King, Bernadette Arena and Wendie Batho travelled to India in 2010 to meet with Sri AmmaBhagavan and to receive (and to give) the Oneness Blessing. It is now available to everyone here in Australia. You may find it a wonderful opportunity to settle the chatter in the mind and to connect you with your essence – or ‘first’ nature.

A New Deeksha being introduced worldwide by Oneness University is now available in Australia

Namaste Dearest Blessing Givers & Oneness Participants

The outreach of Oneness University and the gift of spiritual nurturing and awakening offered by Sri AmmaBhagavan has been released over the years in waves in accordance with Humanity’s response to the outflowing energies. The latest outpouring of Grace is taking the form of an eye-deeksha and is known as the Oneness Meditation. This new deeksha has only so far been introduced in a few countries around the world and now it is Australia’s turn.

To begin with Pasquo and I have been initiated to be instruments for this new deeksha, with other trainers around Australia to be initiated soon. We have begun facilitating this Oneness Meditation here in Adelaide with very powerful results and amazing feedback and reports of miracles from the participants. Oneness Trainers in different parts of Australia have invited us to come and share the deeksha with their groups so that the benediction of the Oneness Meditation can spread quickly to their oneness participants around the country. So programs have been scheduled for Sydney, NSW Central Coast, Melbourne and Perth, with programs also continuing here in Adelaide in the next few weeks. We have included the program details below.

What is the Oneness Meditation
This is a group Meditation where powerful Divine energies flow through the initiated person who acts as an instrument for the transfer of the blessing to the group through eye contact with each participant. The eye contact allows the Divine energies to flow, giving a very powerful Deeksha to the those present. This energy helps to awaken one’s inner Divine intelligence leading to an accelerated process of awakening.

As most of you are aware 2012 is a very important year. We are in a window of opportunity to accelerate our personal growth. We have the power of choice to steer our own destiny. This deeksha is potent enough to allow incredible breakthroughs in all areas of our everyday life. The feedback we have received so far verifies this with those who received this eye deeksha here in Adelaide reporting incredible immediate shifts in their consciousness and the way they experience their life. A lady who had experienced prolonged depression and loss of faith in life had a complete shift of consciousness and reported how if she revisits the thoughts that were troubling her previously there is no emotional charge present any more. Previously she cried every time she had these thoughts. When she got out of bed the morning following the deeksha, she felt good and had a completely positive outlook on her life with a complete shift in perception from the previous long-experienced despair.

Sri Bhagavan has stated that the power of this eye deeksha will accelerate the personal awakening of all who receive it. Conditioning and obstacles to spiritual growth can be removed plus positive gains in health, wealth and happiness can be experienced. The deeksha facilitates healing, on a physical, emotional and mental level and the healing required for the opening up into right relationships with all people in your life

The Oneness Meditation is offered to all people of all denominations, races, creeds and walks of life. No prior experience of Oneness events is necessary in order to participate. So please share this wonderful opportunity and invite friends, family and work colleagues to experience this new benediction and gift for all. We hope you can join us and experience this Oneness Meditation first hand and see the changes for yourself.

Program Details
Sydney – Saturday 18th February – North Sydney
Bookings & details:
Gaynor – Tel: 02 9411 6886   Email: info@sydneyoneness.com.au
Dinah & Kaya – Tel: 02 95686513 Email: dinah64@tpg.com.au

Central Coast NSW- 19th February – Terrigal
Bookings & Details:
Alun and Marion Vaughan (02) 4385 7672Email: alunv@optusnet.com.au

Adelaide – Fullarton – 26th February
Bookings & Details:
Lisa & Pasquo – Tel: 08 83385642 Email: info@onenesscentre.com.au

Melbourne – 2nd & 3rd March
Bookings & Details:
Brandon & Rochelle – Mob: 0400 619 785 Email: brandongiffard@hotmail.com

Perth – Fremantle – 17th, 18th  March.
Bookings & Details:
Isha – Tel: 08 93364684  Email: openheart@aapt.net.au

We hope that each and every one of you will take up this opportunity to participate in this new deeksha and encourage as many of your blessing participants, friends and family to do so also. It matters not whether you received the deeksha yesterday, years ago or you have never even heard of the Oneness Blessing before, this new Oneness Meditation is a gift  for everyone. Please find the flyer attached with all the details and some feedback below from those who have received the new deeksha.

We hope you can join us and look forward to coming back to Sydney this week and sharing this gift from Amma Bhagavan.

Love & Blessings
Lisa & Pasquo

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What to do When Someone You Love is Diagnosed

“I can’t imagine how you must be feeling right now but I’m happy to listen”.

These notes have been put up to support a radio interview done by Petrea King on Monday 6th February on Nightlife with Tony Delroy (ABC local radio).

Introduction

It’s often difficult to know what to say when someone you love is diagnosed with cancer or a serious disease. Some people find it so uncomfortable that they’d rather cross the street than say hello to you. Why is this? The anguish of diagnosis is a big enough trauma without feeling that people have deserted you because they don’t know what to say. So, what is supportive when someone you love has been given a diagnosis? What should we say? How can we unobtrusively or, perhaps, obviously let them know that we’re here for them?

Petrea shares some supportive and meaningful insights into the DO’s and DON’T's of what to say to someone who’s just been diagnosed;

DO say:

• “I can’t imagine how you must be feeling right now but I’m happy to listen”.
• Do listen without judgment.
• Do something practical if you can. Perhaps pick the children up after school, offer to drive your friend to their treatment or support group or counsellor, take the dog to the vet if need be.
• Most importantly, ask your friend what kind of support they might most value. Would they like you to research options, doctors, treatments or complementary therapies?

DON’T say:

• Don’t tell people to be positive or keep their chin up.
• Don’t tell people that they shouldn’t feel the way they do.  If that’s how a person feels then respect their feelings and don’t judge them. A person will not disclose what you might perceive as negative feelings if they feel they will be judged. It is not negative to talk about death, suicide, despair, depression, panic or fear. Talking about things gets the energy of the feeling moving and as soon as we are able to utter the unutterable we find the feeling diminishes in its intensity. Sometimes we don’t know what we feel until we hear what we say.
• Don’t tell people about the people you know who’ve suffered with or died of the disease that your friend’s just been diagnosed with.
• Don’t assume that you know how another person is feeling. For instance, for one person who has cancer in the breast, he or she may feel relieved that it is in a part of their body where it can easily be removed, whilst for another it may be devastating to her body image and sexuality.

Support available:

• Sometimes the most unexpected people appear in your life and are wonderfully supportive be open to these ‘angles’ in your life. People are so willing to help.
• For many people, perhaps for the first time in their lives, they realise how much other people really care about them.
• Quest for Life Programs and support.

Should you or someone you love require further information on the programs and support Quest for Life provides please contact Quest for Life on

1300 941 488 or visit the website and you can always become part of our Facebook community.

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Finding Peace in the Midst of Suffering with Petrea King

Staff at St Vincents

Petrea was invited by the Pastoral Care Department of St Vincents Hospital to speak at Grand Rounds in October 2011. Her subject was Spiritual Pain and Suffering and how to be helpful to patients who might be facing end of life issues. The auditorium was packed with the highest number of attendees ever recorded at Grand Rounds. The audience included all medical and administrative personnel with many Heads of Departments as well as the CEO of the hospital attending. This talk is also shown on the in hospital CCTV system so that patients have access to it as well.

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Peace: A Message from Petrea King

Peace Becomes Possible

Crisis in our personal life is often the catalyst for major uplifting transformation. For the past 27 years I (and others in our organisation) have been working with people living with a personal crisis – cancer, HIV/AIDS, grief, loss, trauma, depression, anxiety, violence and abuse.

When individuals realize that we can’t always change what happens to us, but we can change our response to the events, challenges and traumas in our lives, peace becomes possible. Too often people settle for mediocrity until the stimulus of deep suffering creates an opportunity for new choices, creative responses and inspired change in our lives.

It would seem that collectively – globally – we are creating this shared possibility of a new future as environmental collapse, climate change, over population, diminishing resources, political upheaval, economic collapse all contribute to increased personal, community, national and planetary suffering. It seems that this collaborative shift is happening through a combination of our yearning for evolution to a higher human expression of our conscious through the stimulus of our shared suffering. Peace is definitely possible.

We have witnessed the almighty capacities of the human spirit that refuses to be defined by the challenges we experience and instead evolves to a profound state of peace – the peace that passes all understanding. Of this we are all capable and it is a joy to be part of a community of people consciously evolving regardless of whether we are stimulated by suffering, insight or inner wisdom.

Thank you for your company.

Petrea King

Petrea King
N.D., D.R.M., D.B.M., Dip Cl. Hyp., I.Y.T.A.

Petrea King is a well-known author, inspirational speaker, counsellor and workshop leader. She has practiced many forms of meditation since the age of seventeen and she is also qualified as a naturopath, herbalist, hypnotherapist, yoga and meditation teacher.

In 1983 Petrea was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia and was not expected to live.  Meditation and the integration of past traumatic experiences became paramount in her recovery, much of which was spent in a monastery near Assisi in Italy.

Since then, Petrea has counselled individually or through residential programs more than 60,000 people living with life-challenging illnesses, grief, loss, trauma and tragedy. Petrea sees crisis as a catalyst for spiritual growth and understanding and as an opportunity for healing and peace.

Petrea has received the Advance Australia Award and the Centenary Medal for her contribution to the community. She has been nominated for Australian of the Year in each year since 2004.

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A Message from Petrea King

Petrea King

People seeking change are gathering across the world to Occupy cities. As this great movement of humanity draws together to seek fundamental change, it could be useful to address the questions that we need to ask ourselves and others in order to bring about change. If the Occupy groups splinter into individual causes we will dissipate our energy and not have a coherent and unified voice. It seems to me that we need to address the cause of our distress…we need a new cultural story to live by. What we are experiencing is the result of a cultural story that causes us to feel that we are separate individuals who need to compete, manipulate and exercise power over one another in order to get our needs met. And we are all seduced by the notion that a little bit more will make us happy.

We need a new cultural story that recognizes the unity of all life, that understands that what we do to another we do to ourselves, that respects the environment, that upholds the rights of individuals and protects and respects minority groups by treating all people as equal.

In order to collectively arrive at sustainable solutions we need to ask skillful questions that will lead us there. If we focus on more equitable pay, stopping deforestation, political change and the myriad of other challenges we face we may dissipate our energy and commitment.

The problems we are facing now cannot be solved through the political, economic or military systems. We need a spiritual (not religious) solution that honors all humanity and the environment from which we spring and that speaks to and enlivens our hearts.

Petrea King

N.D., D.R.M., D.B.M., Dip Cl. Hyp., I.Y.T.A.

Petrea King is a well-known author, inspirational speaker, counsellor and workshop leader. She has practiced many forms of meditation since the age of seventeen and she is also qualified as a naturopath, herbalist, hypnotherapist, yoga and meditation teacher.

In 1983 Petrea was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia and was not expected to live.  Meditation and the integration of past traumatic experiences became paramount in her recovery, much of which was spent in a monastery near Assisi in Italy.

Since then, Petrea has counselled individually or through residential programs more than 60,000 people living with life-challenging illnesses, grief, loss, trauma and tragedy. Petrea sees crisis as a catalyst for spiritual growth and understanding and as an opportunity for healing and peace.

Petrea has received the Advance Australia Award and the Centenary Medal for her contribution to the community. She has been nominated for Australian of the Year in each year since 2004.

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My Friend in the Garden

Zen Garden

Recently I was in a beautiful garden sitting with a dear friend asking her for her wisdom and guidance about an issue in my life.

This friend is a true and trusted loving presence in my life and I often consult with her. I have to say she has never given me bad counsel. As we sat, she said I needed to “take it easy and trust in life. Everything is taken care of”. She added you don’t need to worry… you are safe”… I breathed a sigh of relief and warmth filled my belly.

I stayed holding hands with this dear friend and I relaxed.

My soul filled with joy and peace.

Did you guess yet who my friend was?

Yes it was me… Like many of you, I love to unwind and rejuvenate to Petrea’s beautiful voice. One of my favourite CD’s is Zen Garden in which Petrea leads us into a garden so we can sit and talk with the higher part of ourselves – the wise and loving part who cares and knows our best answers. If you have wondered what this CD is all about, I can highly recommend it as a way to peace and connecting with the part of you that holds your highest wellbeing at heart and who always loves you during both challenging and good times…

Wishing you much ease and peace with your own special garden friend.

Zen Garden

Lots of love Margie

Note: We have a special on Zen Garden until 31st October – it is half price at $15 (including postage) – will make a great Christmas present! Click here to purchase.

Margie Braunstein

Margie is a somatic psychotherapist and counsellor providing psychotherapy services to the people of the Central Coast and Sydney.  Margie lives on the beautiful Central Coast with her husband, two children, two dogs and a cat.

Over the last 12 years, Margie has also been engaged in the design, delivery and marketing of transformational learning programs. During this time she has regularly facilitated personal development programs for up to 50 people on weekend workshops, week-long intensives and advanced programs of 3-4 months.

Margie has a Graduate Certificate in Adult Education from UTS, Diploma in Psychotherapy from the Australian College of Contemporary Somatic Psychotherapy and qualifications in somatic therapy, executive coaching and relationship counselling.

Margie has a passion for personal development and regards people with respect, empathy and compassion in the belief that while we all do the best we can, a little bit more kindness and care can lead to even greater peace and joy in life.

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Dr Wayne Dyer’s Leukaemia

Petrea King

In this interview Dr Wayne Dyer speaks of his personal healing journey with leukaemia and his understanding of life, the present moment, parallel dimensions and our human and divine potential. So much of what he shares mirrors my experiences and he describes the unseen world so beautifully and I hope you enjoy listening to him.

Petrea King

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