All posts by The Extropist

The Will to Work is The Will to Live

September 14, 2014 The Extropist Leave a comment

Life is movement. It has momentum. It has a rhythm and when it stops – life stops. We have to keep playing the game of life otherwise we will fail to exist and this is core to every living thing in the Universe. Atoms have to keep vibrating. Photons have to keep pulsating. Trees have to keep breathing. Animals have to keep beating and humans have to keep creating.

This rhythm is true to everything in the Universe because its counter-point is entropy, which describes the inevitable decline of every system into chaos and disorder. This decline exists because no system is perfectly balanced and so there is always an energy leak. The leak is catered for by this rhythm of life that we all create. It is the desire to keep moving, to push forward. To do the work we have to, to give the system more energy, and even more energy than from where we started. We have to be inspired enough to take another step even when we have nothing left.

Power of Purpose

So often we hear of people who retire and live without passion, without purpose and then they very soon leave this world. Too often we hear about a person, who has fought the good fight and continued to live on only until they decide to rest. Studies have shown that people in there 80’s who had a daily practice of stagnant resting had close to a 50% mortality rate of surviving over a 6 month period, compared to people who actively engaged through a mindfulness practice that had nearly a 100% survival rate over the same period. What this tells us is that we have to continue to be present to our system, continue to work for our life and our lives.

Will is your Life Force

We turn work into energy that can then translate into many different areas of our lives. When we put work into our relationship, and think to bring gifts, provide help and show our appreciation for the loved ones in our lives – those relationships grow stronger. When we do nothing they wither and die. When we put work into our bodies through exercise, eating healthy, and maintaining a consciousness practice – we live longer. When we become lazy and indulgent with our bodies – we put needless stress and pressure on the system causing it to fail sooner. When we work for our job, go the extra mile, and help out our coworkers, letting them know that we are appreciative of them and respect their efforts – we excel at our jobs. Yet if we lounge around and create discord, we no longer progress and often lose our place.

Energetic Credits of Money

Interestingly much of this energy we put back into these systems of our lives – relationships, work, health – is facilitated by money. And what is money, but merely the easiest and most transferable form of energy. We turn work into energy, which we then can transfer through money. It allows us to buy and grow our lives through credits we have done for work. All this work that we do in our lives results in money and this money we can transfer into each system to help maintain the overall human system. So as you can see every system in your life requires work and energy to fight the natural tendency of life to break down. And while its hard it’s up to you to maintain these systems, to keep the plates spinning so they don’t fall, to keep the balls in the air so they don’t drop and break.

But know this: Your will to work starts with you. This work is for you, not for others. Work on yourself and others will reap the rewards. The will to live is generated from the work within and the will to work from you will only then extend beyond the current form. The exciting thing about this work is that it never stops. When we have mastered the current rhythm, we invite ever greater intricacies to the systemic patterns of our life in order that we can continue to expand our repertoire, increase the complexity or our life’s rhythms and grow the breadth of our consciousness to make us ever more creative and effective human systems for the world. So the next time you feel overwhelmed by the work you have to overcome know that you are growing the systems of your life to ever higher places with each and every step forward.

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Crushing the Global Psychological Epidemic: The Hero’s Journey from Child to Adult

July 30, 2014 The Extropist Leave a comment

For a long time I have thought about this problem that affects every person in the developed world and only recently I am moving to explore that these new revelations are the cause for the greatest epidemic affecting the whole world. This global affliction of the developed world is our feeling of Worthlessness. This manifests in countless ways, destroying people’s lives through self loathing, a lack of self belief and suspicion of the world around, to name only a few. We then see this in destructive behaviours, such as drug abuse, infidelity, suicide, etc. I originally thought this came from a lack of love but then I had to wonder where did that come from and I believe that I have stumbled upon the path to help lead us to the core of this problem. The Lack of Self.

The Sense of Self

Without a sense of self, we have no firm ground to stand on, no strength of wisdom to drawn from in times of need. We look to others to fill the void of true identity in order that we can know who we are. Often when we find people we take that this feeling of “filling the void of self” as such an intense relief, we think we are in love. But this relief is short-lived, because the person who has filled us up falters due to the fact that they also are searching for self. They were not able to satisfy every whim that the self demanded in order to feel fully valued. We will later consider that this is because the self is continually looking outward for validation. This leaves the self feeling angry and despondent that this person left us feeling empty or invalidated. All people want is to be seen but how can we be when who we are, our core self, is vapor? And so this leads us to the question where has this epidemic started from? Well it all begins at the edge of childhood.

Child vs Adult

In childhood, lives the child mind. This is true for boy and girl. Here curiosity and wonder live as we explore and learn, not only about the world but also, about our selves in the world. We are working to form who we are as we pummel and push ourselves through life in these formative years. Childhood requires external stimulation whereas adulthood can take from internal reflection. This is because adults have determined a sense of self. Without the sense of self the child mind is left with a deafening silence and looks to the outside to distract it from the silence in the form of tv, sex and drugs, to name a few. Through the external activities the child is free from the silence and the void of self. Whereas the adult self can go inside and reflect on the self. It can use the self as a source of strength and a spring of wisdom in order that it may truly attain the moment and recognize the truth of their happiness.

The Villains of Happiness

Epicurus, a 4th century BC Greek philosopher spoke of happiness as 3 things: community, freedom to pursue your passion, and space to reflect and grow the psyche. The media panders to the child in advertising using the first 2 elements so that we are able to be constantly stimulated and not need to reflect on the self. Reflection is not conducive to media stimulation and therefore our child audience is missing a great opportunity to explore the self. We never see advertising marketed to the child mind to stop and contemplate on self but rather to accrue more friends and do what they want to do (only the first two epicurean parameters of happiness) Additionally, a stigma has begun to form around the person that spends time by themselves. They are anti-social. They are introverts. They are depressed. Are they plotting to harm others?

The Hero’s Journey from Child to Adult

The transition of child to adult mind often requires the child to complete a hero’s journey that begins their move into their adult mind. It is when they die to the security of their self as the coddled dependent and rather they embrace their journey as the solo adult. It is at this point the person now begins to realize that they are the master of their lives and are willing to take sole responsibility for it, without resentment, but with unencumbered love. Through life we have countless opportunities to die to our old selves and embrace the new. In marriage. In parenthood. In our careers. We must constantly surrender our ego and let it die in order that we allow the ever maturing adult mind to shine through. The child needs to push to its limits, feel the fear, and then continue to strive onward. This takes courage because we face our biggest enemy – our scared child selves. The child self that is telling us to go back home and try to be safe. But we must push passed these limitations of the child. We must let that self die. We must be willing to get burnt by the dragon in order to defeat it. And on the other side of our quest lies the treasure of learning and attaining our true sense of self. We see this over and over in the entrepreneur, the selfless mother, the devoted husband.

The Adult life

How do we find the courage to push passed these limits? We push past our limitations to take responsibility for what we are not responsible for. We pick a dream that is bigger than our life. A dream that takes more than one lifetime to complete. When you find those dreams, you grab onto them and you ride them down the rabbit hole to wherever they may lead you because once on this journey you know you will have travelled a life well lived. So be brave. Embrace your responsibility. Believe in yourself. Take help from your friends. Follow your dreams. And look inward to learn about who you REALLY are. When we take the time to live these simple rules we begin to open ourselves to the wisdom that exists within our adult self and we will begin to truly know ourselves as whole and worthy people. We will begin to accept and love ourselves. And the epidemic that has left us defeated and deflated will be replaced by a global community of conscientious adults that live and learn from love, for themselves, from others and from the gifts of the world around.

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The Quantum Mechanics of Reaching Your Dreams

July 14, 2014 The Extropist Leave a comment

In 1900, the world was made aware of a universal fundamental called Quantum Mechanics by Max Planck. From this new formulation of universal mechanics, society has strangely begun to take on the properties of this counterintuitive world and in many regards it’s leaving people productively impotent like rabbits in headlights.

Quantum Mechanations

Quantum mechanics has explained the materials of the universe as both a wave of infinite possibility and a particle of one. This means that until a wave has been disturbed by impact or observation, causing it to collapse into a single particle of matter, the wave will exist as an infinite number in non-linear ambiguity. Like the wave of infinite possibilities, so too exists the realm of our creative ideas in our minds. It is in these possibilities that our dreams live. Such ideas have opened us up to a world of potential of unimagined possibilities, when we have acted accordingly to help them collapse. It is these dreams we imagine for the world that mimic these quantum ideas.

Quantum Interference

We have infinite ideas and it is only once we observe them and start taking action that we collapse them from a thought, a wave of electricity in our brain, and help them collapse into a real form. However, because every dream lives in these possibilities, and we are inundated with brilliant ideas, we soon become overcome by choice. What direction do we take? What possibility do we choose from the infinitum of brilliant ideas? When we choose, we close off the other options and collapse the possibility into reality to give it form and freedom to become what it needs to be. Often though we can’t make that choice because of FOMO (Fear of missing out).

This fear of missing out denies the ability to create and instead lets the ideas live in the wonder of possibility, but we live in the world of tangible form and so we must ground our ideas in the fabric of reality with our love, passion and sweat. If we do not work to collapse them then that is all they stay… ideas. The road is often arduous and so to stay the course we need 2 things: 1) Our bearing or goal and 2) the path to get us there. It is the goal that leads to the idea to collapse into reality, yet it is our path that creates the energy to create the catalyst for the collapse.

The “Aware” Observer Effect

The way the probability of choice and direction collapses a quantum component is also true of collapsing and creating the possibility of our dreams in our lives to make them real. It comes down to observation or… awareness (Learn more at “The Stress-Free Present“). Mindfulness is a powerful form of awareness that cuts a defined path through life and helps you direct your intention to allow the ideas of your dream to collapse. This focus helps you ground into reality. Additionally taking this time to reflect allows you to check in and reflect to feel how passionate you are about your dream and maintain or ramp that belief up if needed.

What this means is that by remaining present and positive, by believing in yourself and your dreams, you give yourself the best chance to birth your dreams into the world. There will be probabilities and possibilities that will work for and against you, but it is up to you to pilot the ebb and flow of life in order to hold your bearing and reach the destination of your dream. Remember, do this armed with the clearest intention and a bounty of love and passion and no obstacle will deter you and all possibilities will collapse into probabilities.

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I Love CHAOS! And YOU asked for it? (The Extropist Series – Part III)

October 18, 2013 The Extropist 1 Comment

I have often pondered over chaos and control. What is the point of chaos? Why do we have it in our lives? And how does it relate to being an Extropist? Then one day it came to me. It’s there because we ask for it to come into our lives. And when I understood this I realized that I love chaos. This new idea about chaos came when I learnt something about evolution. EVOLUTION REQUIRES CHAOS. When something in the environment is destroyed and removed from the eco-system it creates space for new beings in this system to come in and take advantage of the change. The new being evolves to then thrive in this new system structure and be more effective and powerful than before.

This is the same thing that happens in our own lives. Something comes along and throws the stability out of our world by changing the environment. It is then up to us to best develop and evolve ourselves in order to better handle the new environment. We are forced to reassess the structure and workings of our world, tear it down and rebuild it as a new and stronger, more effective system. So you might begin to see that chaos is a good thing, but people don’t see it that way.

The Problem of Chaos

Several things make chaos seem like a bad thing. Firstly, we are hesitant to break our world down as we have become comfortable in the world that we have created. Next, rebuilding the system of our world takes energy and work. Energy that we may not have or are reticent to spend on reconstructing our world to take into consideration the change in our environment. And finally, it is the resistance that we have to the chaos and change that limits our ability to properly function and motivate ourselves to use our energy in the most effective manner to make change.

Calling Chaos

The only difference to what we see in the larger phylogenic (or species) evolution is that people can consciously create change from an ontogenic (or individual) evolution that feeds the change for the species. What this means is that we call chaos into our lives so that we can evolve our individual system. That’s right! You literally ask for chaos to come in and mess up your world. WE CREATE CHAOS! Chaos is simply disordered energy. We need more energy to increase the size of our life and perpetuate our evolution. But this energy wont just come on a platter as a ready to plug-in battery pack. Sadly, that’s not how it works, nor would it be fun if we didn’t have to solve how to evolve.

When chaos enters into our lives, there is a greater overall amount of energy now in our lives. However this disorder is causing the current system to become inefficient, as it has not been calibrated to handle the new energy. This is why we often feel unstable and out of control with it’s introduction and so we often have to completely change the whole system in order to handle the new incoming energy. It is this reordering that causes the system to be more evolved as it has learnt how to better work with the new energy in the system. This can then have a trickle down effect for the whole species because then when another person sees how this new way of being is more advantageous they may choose to follow the new system. Then another. And another until critical mass is reached and there are more people using the more advanced system than the old. So you see that chaos might actually be a good thing for not only you, but everyone.

Karmic Chaos

But you may ask “how can we call chaos into our lives? And why would we?” Well, I’m certainly not advocating forcing chaos into your life by doing something dangerous such as jumping off a cliff, but rather begin to listen to the natural ebb and flow of life. Chaos is partially karmic, as it is a consequence that mirrors the amount of energy that you have put into your life. You are actually asking for the injection of new energy because you have used up all your energy in the system and now you are getting an equivalent amount of energy back to work with. Its kind of like pushing the pendulum. When you push it away from you, you get the fruits of the upswing, but slowly it reaches the top and eventually stops moving. So we need more energy to bring into the system to continue the growth and that comes back to us in the form of chaos. It is this energy from the back swing that you get to work with to evolve the system.

With each swing you get stronger and so you can push the pendulum farther. This in turn creates a greater experience and use of the energy in your life. A bigger swing also brings back more chaos into your life. You, however, are now stronger, wiser and more able to handle the introduction of greater chaos into your life. Some people resist and deny the chaos in their lives while others embrace it. There is a great saying, “Small life, small problems. Big life, big problems.” But know this: You can only bring into your life as much chaos as you are able to handle and never more. This is a very important point. This is because you can always handle the force of the return swing because you created the first amount of energy. Therefore the only time chaos can overwhelm you is if you feed into the old way of thinking and tell yourself that chaos is a bad thing due to one of the three points earlier. This will limit your ability to work with the new energy, to evolve the system and create a more amazing life.

So you can see that chaos is intrinsic to creating anything in our lives. Progress requires chaos. We must not be afraid of chaos, but understand it as a natural part of the growth process in life. When you feel the all too familiar feeling of change in the air, that something is happening that is out of your control, trust ultimately that you can handle it. You don’t need comfort and security all the time if you know things will turn out for the best. When you can trust in life and the process of it, you will be able to control the chaos. You can KNOW this because you called for chaos to come into your life. Instead of shying away from the small problems and living a small life, embrace the big problems when they come so that you can live the biggest life you can dream of.

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The Dynamic Systems of Extropy (The Extropist Series – Part II)

October 1, 2013 The Extropist Leave a comment

When we want to make a change in our lives, we know as extropists that we must create a system of structured energy in order to move into an experience that better serves us. This energy injection has many different names. In science it is called “work”. It is this work that we give to a situation that helps raise the integrity of the situation by overcoming conflict and creating resolve.

This work however requires a balance of energy within the system dynamics otherwise there can be a system failure because the system is being under or overwhelmed by the amount of energy inserted into it. Every part of our lives, whether it be relationships, career, health, or anything else, is impacted by system dynamics. However, it requires an awareness of the kinds of systems that you are working with rather than assuming that all systems operate under the same specifications. Do not assume, but get in tune.

It is important to go through how the systems in our lives can become imbalanced and what that can lead to. This allows us to be aware of each dynamic in order that you can then understand where you may need to tweak the energy in order to bring it back into balance.

Sometimes you can overwork the system by putting too much work into it. This may apply to relationships when one person is giving too much to the system and therefore expecting something more than the other person can give back in return. Consider these two people are two elements giving energy to create the “relationship” system. With an imbalance of energy, this could cause person A (the input) to blow a fuse from taking more energy that it can handle or cause person B (the contributor) to burn out from working too hard and not getting enough energy/ output back to continue with or validate their work.

To further explain this, imagine that person (B) likes person (A) a lot and this person (A) is hesitant to get too involved. They are limiting the flow of energy, whether it’s because they have restricted the flow of energy they allow into their experience from person (B) or because they have been hurt previously and they have a damaged emotional structure to process the attention and energy being given to them. This person (A) receiving the energy will be hesitant to take the energy, thus limit the flow and will only give back the energy they are willing to receive.

Otherwise, if person A, takes on more energy that they can handle it can also damage the system as they are taking in more energy than they are able to handle. This will cause person (A)’s fuse to blow and they may either derail in the relationship or elsewhere in their system (career, health) depending on how the composition of the overall structural integrity of their psyche is and where their weak points may be.

Additionally, the force of energy from person B could be so great that it begins to back up and cause A to not be able to take in any of the energy offered to them at all. This could frustrate and be very hurtful to person B, because B is trying to create a greater system by forcing energy into the new structure. Without reciprocation from person A, person B is doing a lot of work and not getting a reciprocal output. As B’s energy begins to deplete, due to the failure of the work to get the desired result, this may create feelings that invalidate person B as they are not able to maintain the system and again results in a system collapse.

These types of energy dynamics exist in any system whether it’s your work or your physical body. You can be overworked and become burnt out or you can try to give too much and destroy the connections that you have built by giving too much to the system. It is important to constantly evaluate the system be aware and give and take in order to work with what the system can handle. Often people create an ideal of what they think the system is and try to force the system into that place rather than allow the system to grow into that place. Be aware of what and who you are working with. Remain conscious and try not to force your beliefs and ideals on people through the energy and work that you give because this will cause your energy to be depleted and no work to get done. Change comes from the inside, and therefore we must allow people and ourselves the room to move and grow. Otherwise the system will collapse under the rigidity of the perceived ideal structure rather than allowing the actuality of the more fluid organic structures to work with what we hope to create. To create an ever better and evolved system.

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The Way of Extropy (The Extropist Series – Part I)

September 6, 2013 The Extropist Leave a comment

There is a road we all must walk. There is no denying it. We each step on it as we are born and we continue to be on it until the day we die. This road is the road of life and we can choose where it will take us or we can go along for the ride and let it take us there. That is up to us. Whether or not we end up where we wanted to or not comes down to choice. A choice of whether we are extropists or entropists.

Entropy comes from the second law of thermodynamics which states that all systems leak energy to spiral down to an inevitable state of chaos and disorder. This is the most common form of existence, as we find that more often than not the things we have created or try to create often end up in disrepair. Whether its relationships, our careers, physical and mental health, these are all systems that are ultimately overcome by the forces of entropy. An example of this may be we fall in love, we get married and then we begin to take our partner for granted. We have put in the amount of energy required to win their hearts and now things should just coast along. Right? Wrong. Entropy states that there will be a natural dissipation of energy that will ultimately cause the system of your relationship dynamic to begin to degrade, collapse and fall into chaos. So how can we stop this from happening? Extropy.

Extropy on the other hand is putting a stop to this energy leak caused from entropy by injecting more energy into the system than its losing which results in an evolved system dynamics of using this energy. Extropy may come in the form of a couple in a failing relationship putting the time and effort into build new communication channels which result in a clearer dialogue and a happier time between the couple. Or it may result in a person studying outside of their work in order to have a greater understanding of their job so that they can do their job better which results in a promotion. Extropy ultimately leads the actor towards a system of greater organized complexity, rather than greater disorder and chaos. Ordered complexity here might sound uncomfortable but what it is referring to is ever greater functionality offered to the system with the most effective and efficient use of energy. The system can constantly evolve. There is no limit.

The greatest from of energy that we can offer is love. Love comes in many different forms, shapes and colors. Two experiences of love to mention are gratitude and giving. They require the person to actively choose to involve themselves with good thoughts, good words and good deeds. Gratitude is the internal manifestation and experience of love and giving is the external manifestation and experience of love. These forms of love are a way in which to give energy to a entropic system in order to inspire change and elevate it to greater functionality and purpose.

Therefore we need to think about how and where we put our energy and use our time. When we operate unconsciously and automatically we give energy to our habits, which are behavior patterns we apply to try to use the least amount of energy. These autopilot holding patterns may keep us feeling like we are safe but very soon we will run out of fuel (energy) and will be forced to act very fast and put ourselves in very stressful situations. So take control of your destiny and use the free will that you have been granted in order to create the destination for your road rather than have it direct you to a failed destiny. Ensure that you strive to remain a conscious creator of your life in order that you are continuously giving more energy to a situation than letting what you have created leak entropically out into the Universe around. Instead, as an extropist you want to constantly address your life with love and ask how may you give to it in order that it may evolve into a space of ever-greater ordered complexity and profound purpose. Good luck on your Journey!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqZZvnb_B7w&w=420&h=315]

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Overcoming Obstacles – Strive to Surrender

July 9, 2013 The Extropist Leave a comment

We strive so hard to create something in this world that we can call our own, that we can be proud of. We come up with the idea, we go out and we work at it to make it happen. Sometimes we get there sometimes we don’t, but always we face one thing – A road that is filled with its ups, and most certainly, its downs. These downs are a trial by fire that has us look into the depths of ourselves. It questions whether we are deserving of this creation to become manifest and real or to fall into the lost shadows of things that could have been.

This decision is not made by a cosmological jury that rests high on some ideological mountain, nor is it a mythical being that weighs up all that you have done which validates your worthiness of birthing this creation. That which that decides is you. You are the person that needs to accept you. You are the person that needs to look deep into the person that you are and decide and define yourself as worthy of receiving.

So often when we attempt to create these dreams, obstacles come in our way, but why are they there? They are there to strengthen and stretch you. They are there to have you realize that you can do it. That you can say to yourself and the world… “Yes I can!” And that is the point of these troubles. That is the reason that YOU brought them into your life. You must grow into the bigger version of yourself in order to have the strength to handle the bigger version of your life. There is a great saying – “Small life, small problems. Big life, big problems.”

It is interesting to think that if you have asked for these things into your life, ultimately asking for these tests to present themselves, then what else can you ask for and how can you handle them? Do you fight against the fact that they have arrived? Do you try to wrestle them down to the earth and slay them like they are undeserving of existence? Maybe. Another way to handle these situations is with a word. A word that to many people seems like defeat but it’s a word based on faith and trust in the process. That word is… Surrender.

How, some may ask, can surrender result in a win? The answer is trust. When you try to create something, you set in motion a chain of events that results in your dream to be created. The chain of events are the never-ending and interconnected line of cause and effect that results in a continuous stream of action to occur, resulting in something momentous. The butterfly effect states that even from the smallest butterfly wing flap, a giant tsunami can form.

Our thoughts affect the world, not only through our action as an indirect consequence but also as a broadcasting station that reaches out past our bodies. The magnetic field from our heart has been recorded several feet from outside our bodies. Such thoughts and feelings affect the surrounding world and can result in a cascade of events that results in your test, your impasse, in which you struggle to get through.

It is however your resistance and fight that makes this transition a struggle. The same that if you try to stretch and move a tensed muscle, it is not very fluid, movable or mobile. However, when we surrender to the stretch, when we breathe into the experience, accepting it, we allow for movement and change. It is this trust that we have when we stretch and surrender to the movement and hurt, we will grow from it and ultimately be better and bigger by putting ourselves through the experience.

The same exists in our experience of life. We are stretching our consciousness. We are making ourselves bigger, because we asked for it. Because of what we are trying to create in the world, like with growing pains, as we grow we must surrender to the inevitable result of letting go of the past versions of ourselves and accepting the new bigger and better. Allow yourself to be your best, trust in the process and you will find yourself earning your rites of passage.

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Find Harmony in Discord with “Thanks”

June 6, 2013 The Extropist Leave a comment

We all have something in our life that irks us. Something that drives us mad, where we think if only this was not there, or this could be changed somehow. But no matter what we do it always stays the same. There is a solution and it is so simple. It will sound weird at first and it will be difficult, but it’s the simplest things that are often the most difficult. The best way to create a harmony when you find yourself in a discord with life, is to practice gratitude.

The process is simple. Everyday find something about that which upsets you and give thanks for 10 things about your discord. Everyday give thanks for the great things in your life. Write down 10 great things about your problem that you could be grateful for. When you write down the things you appreciate about a person you direct your attention to focus on those things to help make those things a reality. This occurs because you will act towards those things with a compassion and a genuine kindness. Even when they mistreat you, you will find a resilience and be able to see through those more difficult moments and see the beauty in them because that is where you have trained your focus. We each have a sinner and a saint on our shoulder. No-one is perfect. But by giving energy to our saint we are more likely to see the saint on somebody else’s shoulder.

We each live and look from the world from the one perspective, that perspective is from the place in which we stand. Each of us believe that our own view is the ultimate ‘Truth’, but we know from science that even the very fabric of the Universe is subjective. So do you really think that your view is the only right view when the space that we exist in is literally colored by our own thoughts. Realize this and use gratitude to look past your infinitesimal perspective of the Universe and instead open yourself up to the perspective of life through the simple act of saying “Thanks”. By allowing yourself to give thanks to someone you are opening yourself up to their perspective and thereby increasing your own ability to perceive the world more fully to have a richer experience of life. Just Say “Thanks!”

Now this isn’t the end of the practice. One you have written your 10 things about your discord. You will then write another 10 things about how you see your life working for you. Write it in detail. It can be the smallest thing, such as, I’m for the nice chat I have with my parents today or it can be I’m so grateful for the job promotion I get today. This is the same concept that works for gratitude of the past but it sets up a picture for you to focus on and work towards it. Remember where your attention goes reality grows. That means that with the positivity of gratitude, you will have more energy to work towards these outcomes that you are excited about and grateful for because you have already realized the joy that it will bring you. It’s kind of like knowing that your numbers are going to come up at the lottery. You will continue to give time and money to buying tickets because you know that you will eventually win. By continuously giving to your dream, in thought, word and deed, you will undoubtedly create that reality as your very own.

PRACTICE SUMMARY:
Think of that event, person or thing that you want to change in your life and instead give thanks for 10 things about it.
Then give thanks about 10 things that are going to change in your relationship to it.
Note: When you do this properly you will feel a surge of joy take over your body. You may feel like want to cry from happiness or you may feel tingles all over your body. This is more probable if you do more gratitude in a session. And remember it’s really important to believe!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04Lick3RIwU&w=560&h=315]
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As you can see here from Dr. Charney you can restructure your brain to more easily be able to handle stressful and depressing situations circumstances. Gratitude is one of those techniques and it ties directly in with mindfulness or being aware of your thoughts and restructuring them to better serve you.

Hope it helps

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Head to the Heart – the fastest journey to fulfillment

February 22, 2013 The Extropist Leave a comment

We as humans seek for the highest experiences of life. We strive in many different ways through many different activities, all in the name of reaching our highest peaks.

But what are these peaks made of? And how do we get there? Peaks are made up of highs and lows, the valleys as well as the mountains. If they weren’t, then everything would be flat. So too are our personal peaks made up of polar opposites. These poles exist in our body and given the names the Heart and the Mind. The mind is the active pole and is the engine that drives us toward an end. The heart is the passive pole that stores the passion of our dreams and fuels our drive. These are the polar opposites that have been spoken about for thousands of years across hundreds of cultures. The Yin and the Yang, Shakti and Shiva, etc. These two poles have different requirements to satisfy in order to reach our peak experiences.

Mind: Emptiness is Freedom
Let us first look at the active force. In a battery this is considered the positive pole and its role is to send the electric current to the negative pole. This is also considered the masculine energy and its pinnacle is freedom and is experienced through emptiness. As a person strives for a goal in their activity and works hard in order to complete the task, once they have finished the task they have started they are deserving of a break, of a moment of peace and freedom. A space where they don’t have to think but they simply can revel in the joy of what they have created or completed. This active force opens us up to an empty space in which we can truly experience freedom. A good example of this is in sex for men in which they are often the active force of the task and once they have reached their climax of the experience they move into an empty space, one of freedom, where the built up tension has been released and they can go to sleep.

Freedom is the Mind
Emptiness and freedom is an action of the mind. It is a place where we realize there are no limitations and we embrace abundance and true potential. Our conscious minds role is to constrict, to limit and to process. It weighs up options and says what can and can’t work. Upon reaching a freedom state, people often don’t remember the experience, they feel like they have transcended time and space. This is often called Flow or in the zone and it is here that we move out of our mind and the freest we can ever be.

Filled freedom leads to anxiety
When we are not in a freedom state we feel anxious, we feel overwhelmed and constricted. People often express they are feeling physically squeezed. This is because their minds have the tightest hold on them and they are as far away from freedom as possible. They are wearing the weight of the world on their shoulders. They are obliged and responsible. Of course this is all in the mind.

Freedom Practice
We can begin our journey to freedom through the practice of meditation. It is here that you can observe your thoughts and understand the limitations that you place on yourself. When you are quiet you will literally hear the stream of chatter in which you are telling yourself about how limited you are. About how much responsibility you have. About how you are surely going to fail.

Start with 10 mins, 5 mins, or whatever you feel comfortable with and begin to add a minute a day. Sit or lie down, close your eyes and focus on your breathing. Slow it down and take long deep breaths. Count each breath up to 10 and then start your counting again. You will notice your mind wander to limiting thoughts. Catch your mind and understand these are not real but only thoughts and then bring your mind back to counting your breath. We can look at any experience and feel free in what we are doing. When are free we don’t have those limitations anymore. Anything is possible and we can be anyone, anywhere at anytime.

Heart: Surrender is Love
The second domain is a little different. This is the negative pole in the battery and its role is to receive the energy from the positive pole. It’s akin to the feminine energy and its pinnacle is love, which we experience through surrender. Surrender is the complete experience of receiving without any resistance. When we can truly receive we can fill ourselves up. We are deserving of what we are given and we take it completely and wholly with thanks. This feeling of love is a feeling of whole-ment of fulfillment, where we are full and whole from life and what we were doing.

Love in the Heart
Love and surrender is an action of the heart. It is the opposite of the mind. As the mind is a limited channel that strives for emptiness and freedom, the heart is a truly abundant channel that requires you to open it up as much as you can – To have the courage to be vulnerable. To be free, to love as big as you can, because the bigger you love the fuller you’ll be.

Limiting love leads to Depression
We often see this love and fulfillment stop when a person is in depression. Here a person has closed themselves off from their hearts and they feel empty and worthless. Their life is now without purpose or fulfillment. They block out the light in their life. They block themselves from receiving anything and anyone that they would let into their heart. This is a dark experience and one that hides a person away from experiencing their life to the fullest.

Love Practice
So it is so important to be brave. To have the courage to take a step forward towards being vulnerable and opening yourself to experiences. To life. To love. To learn. By trying new things and being open to the unknown we will most certainly make mistakes. This of course is not saying go from depression to universal love because that is a dangerous and somewhat difficult task. Instead, work out the step that is the right size for you. What can you do today that opens you up one step closer to Love. Write a love letter to someone – you don’t even have to give it to them. Say thank you to a stranger. Smile at the teller at the market. By giving you are opening yourself up to receive. And remember… You deserve it. You are worthy of it all.

Head to Hearts
You may have noticed that there is a natural movement from the head to the heart. This is the same as the energy flow from the positive pole to the negative pole of the battery is the masculine pole of the mind to the negative pole of the heart. The energy naturally wants to flow towards a space that can harness and handle copious amounts of good flowing to it we just need to stop restricting the channel. A wise Native American proverb states the longest journey we will ever travel is from our head to our hearts. I find it amazing because our minds and hearts are truly the yin and yang. We are moving to fill up our hearts and we moving to empty our minds but everything and nothing are the same thing and both have an unlimited capacity for abundance. So move towards freedom by becoming aware of your mind and give to yourself and your world and you will fill up your heart. And with each step you take you will be one step closer to your dreams filled with freedom and love.

ELEVATE

Know the world outside to understand your inside

January 17, 2013 The Extropist Leave a comment

In this world we are often thrown around on the stormy seas of life. Life can be such an exciting and enjoyable unknown. With many so many peaks and troughs, we forge through our rolling emotional waves that take us to the tops of the world or leave us feeling incapacitated and ill with despair.
There is a great power to be found in the unknown, because it keeps life spontaneous and fun. We are given the opportunity to play it like a game. If we knew what was going to happen all the time then life would become predictable and boring. It would leave us for the most part, without novelty and we would be left in the doldrums of our own monotony. So hopefully we can see that the scariest and unknown parts of the ride are often the most fun.

Often though we are left with a feeling of being overwhelmed by what is being presented to us. We can feel sick and incapacitated by the anguish and the sheer size of the obstacles before us. Well, first off, we are often not even aware of what we are feeling and this is one of the most rampant dilemmas that we, as modern humans, face. We are severely disconnected from our emotional experience. As time and industry has progressed we have been propelled continuously into a cognitive world. Such cognitive weighting has led to great innovation and progress but at what expense? We are richer than we have ever been but we are less satisfied. We are in great and ongoing conflict with ourselves and others around us and we are left with an ever-increasing epidemic of mental illness.

The Cost of Emotional Distraction

One consideration then is the importance to connect with what we are feeling. People may often find themselves feeling the need to drink or take drugs or have sex or watch TV. But why? One reason to consider is that we are experiencing something emotionally but we don’t know what it is. We don’t know how to experience it. We don’t have the courage to look at what we are feeling and name it and understand why we are left feeling hurt or confused or frustrated or stressed or whatever the feeling is. So we distract ourselves with behaviour that will fill the emotional trough that we are experiencing in some way that will move us back up to the peak. Unfortunately this is merely a bandage solution and will more often than not exacerbate the problems that we are experiencing. Such distracting and destructive behaviours will then compound and build up so that the next time we feel overwhelmed by the emotional rollercoaster it will become ever faster and even scarier to the point where the sheer force of the stress will start degrading our body and ultimately strain our minds leaving us with any number of mental illness. Substance abuse, addiction, anxiety or depressive disorders, schizophrenia and so on…

Name What You Are Feeling

A great method that we can use to diffuse the emotional tension that we are experiencing is by naming the emotion that you are feeling. If you notice that you feel emotionally off, check your feelings, check your thoughts and name it. Out aloud is best, but if not write it down. What is it that you are feeling right now? By naming it you are allowing yourself to see what you are dealing with. It is like in the films, the monster is always scariest when we can’t see it. Our imaginations create the worst, but once we know what it looks like, once it has a name and a face, it is no longer as scary and usually is on its way to being defeated. So don’t run but stand and face the fall and you will see that’s its not so big. At first, you may find it difficult to properly name what you are feeling. You might start saying you feel “BAD” or “STRESSED” but over time you will gain a greater vocabulary and you will be able to see what you are feeling, catch it and help diffuse move away from an emotional slump and instead you will be able to change tracks and begin to lift again.

Empathy: Builds a Vocabulary of Life

To better help gain an understanding of yourself and your internal world it can also help to connect to the world around you. This is a great cost of being a cognitive society is that we don’t even know that we are upset, nor what we are upset about. We don’t even have a proper vocabulary for it with ourselves. We are amazing processors of information and constantly taking in huge amounts of information beyond what we could ever consciously comprehend. By becoming greater processors of our external world we can better understand its impact on us. The way to do this is through empathy. Empathy is the ability to put ourselves in other people’s shoes. Experiencing what others are experiencing. When you see a child cry, try to understand from their experience why they are sad because their ice cream dropped on the ground. Is it because they are instant gratifiers and are sad they will have to wait for another? Are they living from a limited mindset where they don’t believe they will get another? Is it because they are sympathizers and feel bad for wrecking the carpet?

By understanding the world from a greater perspective than just ourselves, we not only see how the world impacts on us but we can also gain a greater insight into how we can control that impact. There is no right or wrong way to practice empathy, but the very act of putting ourselves in another’s shoes teaches compassion, and brings a greater connection and control over our emotions. Maybe, most importantly, empathy provides a deeper insight and emotional intelligence into the way in which people are experiencing the world and therefore will guide our own behaviour to get the best out of another person. This might not seem so important, but when we remember that “no (person) is an island”, we understand the constant barrage and importance of our daily interactions with the populated world and how people can harm or help us. So get to know yourself by knowing your world and you will carve through the stormiest seas with the wind in your sails and a smile in your heart.

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