All posts by The Extropist

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“What is” is the way to easy creating

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When we end with someone in our lives we often worry about what they are doing? Why are they doing these things? What does it mean to us? It gives us an excuse to talk about it and think about them, but does that really serve us to think on all these things? Why do we need the stories that we make up in order to fill the spaces in our lives we don’t know anything about? And most importantly are these stories real and do they really matter?

What matters is that you move your focus away from your partner and all the ‘What if’s’ and simply focus on the ‘What is’. What is happening in your life now? What is right in front of you? What is it that you are working on now? What is inspiring you in life now? The ‘what if’s’ don’t matter.

‘What if vs what is’ is applicable to all things that matter in our lives. It doesn’t just have to be your partner: It can be a job loss. It can be any pending decision for your career, for you health for a competition. It is anything that you are or have worked at to create, any project, any relationship, any dream. Keep your focus on the ‘what is’ because all the stories of what if’s often don’t serve us. It reminds me of the old Cherokee wisdom story of the two wolves that rage within us. When asked upon which wolf wins, the good or the bad, we learn it is the one that we feed. What we give our energy too we feed.

All those thoughts you have about the ‘what if’s’… they don’t exist except in your mind and imagination. People think every thought is real, well they aren’t! They are seeds of change. They are moments of creation that you can latch onto or choose to focus on something else that better serves what you really want. What you really want to create.

It is the emotion and action that we give those thoughts, which materializes one thought over another. If I am sitting here hungry but I want to finish this piece of writing. I will think to myself, “I want to go get food” but I also think “I want to finish this piece while I am in the flow”. Both thoughts are there but which do I choose to give my energy to, I choose the one that best serves me. Which thought do I feed to give energy to? In this situation, it is finishing the piece. So that’s what I choose for my reality by giving emotion and excitement for the finished piece of writing that lies before me. And in doing so, now I will not need to think on food until after I have finished this piece because my emotion and action has allowed me to give solely to this piece of writing.

So acknowledge that you are having a thought but is it a ‘what if’ or a ‘what is’? Your power of creation lies in the ‘what is’. Your actions are more clear and directed when you focus on the ‘what is’. You are more motivated to create the ‘what is’. You are less overwhelmed by the singular ‘what is’ than the multitude of ‘what if’s’. Get present and focus on your ‘what is’ and your journey will be a lot smoother and you will create a lot easier and a lot faster.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1Mb9tsnYLU]

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Dream Bigger than the End

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So often we do things so that we can be the best at something, just for the sake of being the best, but very soon on we lose our motivation and commitment to the cause, finding it very boring. Why do we reach for these goals of being the best at something? So we can think of ourselves as better than other people? So we can think we are a “good” or “smart” person? These lofty ideas can really be thought of elements of our personality. No matter what you do, whenever you compare yourself to someone else you are always afflicted with personality. The personality builds itself on experience relative to the world. You know yourself relative to the world and therefore if you can only know yourself in reference to something you are limiting yourself. You are limiting yourself because you can only grow as big as the person or thing you are comparing yourself to and that is a limiting mind frame that you are holding. Sometimes you reach that goal and you sit around feeling good about yourself until you realize that there is someone else bigger or better and so now you compete with them. Forever competition. Never satisfaction.

By only trying to be the best, not only are you trying to climb to the top of an unreachable mountain, you are stealing the joy from your experience. To truly excel you have to do something, or look at something, in a way that has you do it for the joy of doing it. For instance, if you are doing something just to get good grades or you are working just so you can get money, you are naturally sucking the joy from what you are doing. It is a limited reference frame and won’t inspire you beyond what you are doing, so then why do it?

It is important to look at the thing you are doing from different angles and different perspectives. A good way of doing this is through gratitude for the opportunity to be following this path, for what it involves and for what got you there. You think that what you are doing isn’t relevant now but how do you know in the future it won’t be one of the most relevant things that you did. Find a way to identify with what you are doing. Recontextualize it. What is the relevance of what you are doing to the world? To the rest of your life? Find a way that it is relevant to you so that you can connect with it as something outside of the moment – rather than as a means to an end.

How could anyone be inspired by reaching the end?

It is our reference points that bring us down. I had a friend who grew up in the fields of Mexico. He didn’t know what rich and poor was because there was no one around to compare himself to, so in those days he was blissfully happy. But then he came to America and he saw the difference of his situation, to all the wealth around and how different he was from them. With this new reference frame he felt limited and sad. One day he realized something that lead him to reframe his situation. Instead of focusing on himself in relation to the people above him, he focused himself to his dream which in his mind was well beyond and much more relevant to what he wanted for himself.

In this day and age people will often change with the wind their career, their directions and their idea on who they think they should be and what they should be doing. People soon become lost in the hurricane of choices trying to grab on to as many things as they can whilst they find themselves swirling around in the frenetic digital trends of the day. We often become fixated on these ideas like a rabbit in headlights, copying paths that people have already begun to cut, leaving us more often than not overwhelmed and stuck in the rut. People typically prefer to walk a well-worn road where they will find safety and certainty but they may not find purpose. This may very well be because we are travelling the road well travelled rather than the world less travelled.

So spend the time to work out your big dream. Plan the path ahead. The only reason we choose to focus on other things and people is because we don’t take the time or don’t know what dream we want for ourselves. When you try to reach another persons dream you won’t have the same passion about it; to reach where they did. You won’t be able to muster the same level of enthusiasm needed to go the long haul, and thus everything you do becomes boring and tedious. If you want adventure, if you want excitement, if you want inspiration you may need to do something inspired. If anybody could have done it, it most probably would have been done. Some times all that takes though is simply getting down to business on your dream and believing in it and yourself.

Take the time to work out what your dream is. If you don’t know yet, then find gratitude for the things that you are doing, because in positivity and your higher frames of mind you are opening your frame of reference to a place of greater possibility and opportunity than if you have a closed and resistant mind. Give thanks for the dreams that you do have even if they are modeled after someone else’s and be open and aware for the moment when you realize what you really want to do. So dream big and get exited about your dream. Because when you find your dream, when you find your purpose you wont be doing things for a limited reason, a momentary accolade, a meaningless end, you will be doing things for the joy of the rest of your life.

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Transform your cycle of chaos and become an Extropist

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Often we are caught in a rut and face a trial in our lives that tests our true character. As the weight of this hardship continues to bear down on us, we are left feeling despondent and down. We don’t know where to turn and we feel we are being closed in on from all around. Some people may say, “Don’t worry. Be happy”, but this misses a grave point. You should never deny an emotion. Every emotion needs to be expressed in some form. Instead, acknowledge it and see if you can transform your thinking around whatever this problem may be. Transformation can come in many different forms: through writing, painting, and movement. It doesn’t have to be artistic but in other endeavors such as sports and giving back like volunteering.

http://instagr.am/p/MJXha/

There are many different ways to transform your chaotic situations in life (See “How to Make a Mistake“) but I am here though to talk to you about one particular way different from all the ways I have mentioned. By using this technique, you create opportunities to see change and by giving yourself enough space from the weight of the situation to open yourself up to new possibilities. I am referring to the transformative power of gratitude. Gratitude is an amazing way to transform any problem because it allows us to find the hidden gems that lay dormant in something, even when we were just taking that thing for granted. Taking it for granted as something unimportant or something that was a thorn in our side. There are always moments of true beauty that exist in all of the minutia. In death, in life and in everything in between, there is always a space for us to find the gems that lie within and open us up to the transformative power that will begin to move us away from the chaotic spiral down.

When we truly give our thankful attention and energy to something, we open ourselves up to the greatest potential that exists in it. We also open ourselves to the greatest growth and the fastest path of growth or as it is known the path of least resistance. That is not saying there is no resistance, simply the least amount that we will feel. Everyone has growing pains, in all aspects of our lives: physical, emotional and mental. It is up to us to change the cycle of our lives. We get caught in the spinning downward momentum of the entropic spiral into chaos and disorder. The only way to make a change in direction is to inject enough energy into the cycle in order to, not only slow down our ultimate destination untoward chaos but also to, actually reverse the cycle’s direction all together toward an extropic upward direction.

Extropy is the opposite of entropy (downward spiral to chaos and disorder) and instead involves us moving toward greater harmonious and more organized complexity in which we have greater functionality in order, to not only handle the trials in our lives but, to flourish. We can find this magical energy through gratitude. Gratitude is the energy we inject into the system that reverses us away from chaos. It shines a light on what normally appears destructive and gives us hope and energy to work though that, which normally has left us feeling empty and alone. Gratitude fills us up with the needed motivation to move through the tough times and keeps our wits about us in order to remain conscious enough to learn the lessons and evolve. Gratitude is the energetic tool for mankind to make an evolutionary leap in consciousness. So when you are facing a trial and your faith and focus is waning, and you are feeling overwhelmed by fear, look for what you can to be grateful for. Even when you are caught within what some may consider the muck and the mire you can lift yourself high above the place you are in to be the best person you can be and move powerfully towards finding your joy.

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The Science of Gratitude and the Creation of Dreams

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In getting clear on what our dream life looks like I would like to offer a suggestion on how to best create an emotional and mental space that will most certainly get you there. I say this because so often we talk about what we want and what we are going to have. We spend a lot of time and energy thinking and working hard to get to this dream place. We may even be really excited by the possibility of it but there is something that we always miss out on that has our efforts and energy get lost in the winds of time. And that is… it is so important to ensure that you are grateful for what you have NOW. 

By only being passionate and grateful for what you are getting in the future, you are not grounding yourself in the present. It is in the present moment from which we create our futures. It is the solid ground from which things grow. The material world only exists in this moment. Really think about it: What solid thing exists in the future? Nothing! It is only a possibility. What exists in the past? Nothing! It is only a memory. Even if that moment was only one second ago, you think back on say your plant one second ago, and that memory is only an electrical impulse in your brain, not a material thing. Nothing material exists in the moment outside of the present moment and so we cannot grow things from any other moment, but this moment. The only moment is now. So when you are intending on things in the future, do it from a place where you are firmly grounded in the moment of now.

Over the last hundred years scientific studies have confirmed that there is only the moment of now. Einstein said, “…for us physicists believe the separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, although a convincing one.”  Dr. Richard Feynman, one of the most famous quantum theorists, then went onto describe that the probability of an event is determined by summing together all the possible histories preceding that event. This means that the direction of our journey through time is simply a path in space heavily influenced by our preceding actions, which makes one outcome more probable than the more fantastic journeys time might have otherwise taken us on. Therefore in conjunction with advancing theories over the decades it has been shown that each and every moment is a completely new Universe, with infinite new possibilities in its own right and it is our consciousness (thoughts and feelings) that helps bind time into what appears a simple cohesive journey. 

Why have I gone into this? Because I want you to realize that in every moment you have the ability to create your own reality. That fresh possibility exists in every moment and that moment is only now. So the way that you can direct the most probable outcome is through the sum of the histories of the event in which you are trying to create. By being grateful now for what you have and being grateful for what you WILL have, you help create the most probable sum of the event because you are trying to create an event which makes you very grateful. 

The first thing to know about guiding ourselves to our dreams is based on another quick moment of science. As shown by the Institute of HeartMath, feelings generate particular frequency patterns in our hearts and positive feelings of gratitude generate a very even sinusoidal wave, while negative emotions usually elicit quite erratic patterns. Our heart is the largest generator and emitter of frequencies in our bodies. If every moment is now (even the future) and we are trying to create a moment outside of now for the future then by harmonizing our frequencies of the moment of now with a future moment of now we are helping to couple and connect the moments of now and best create the resonant reality of our choosing. By feeling gratitude intensely we are further creating a stronger signal which will better reach and harmonize with what we are trying to create.

The second element of creation is to be committed. The more gratitude you add to your life and the future event, the greater the probability will be and the more chance you will have of reaching your dream. Every time you give thanks for both now and the future, you add another moment to the history of events that will lead to a greater summation of the probability of that event. So choose what you want now and give thanks for it and remember to give thanks always and often for what you have, because without being grateful for who you are and what you have you are negating your own creative powers and thus leaving you and the connected Universe impotent.

It doesn’t matter if you are surrounded by negativity; remember that every moment is a fresh moment of possibility, in which you can begin to change the direction of your life. You can have lost your job, lost your partner, been diagnosed with an illness, but if you choose what you want and start giving, and truly feeling thanks for what you have received and what you want to receive, you will surely have it. You can give thanks for your family and friends that surround and support you. You can feel love and gratitude for your partner and children. You can think of all that has been given to you and that has kept you alive to this moment. You can be grateful about your health. You can think about your dreams and passions. You can smile about all the things you have accomplished in life. Write them down and keep a list. If only a few every night of what you are grateful about in your day. Give thanks. Feel it and Commit to it and your dream life is surely waiting in the next moment.

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Love: The mirror that gives as good as it gets!

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You Quiet my Wild Heart
When we end with a partner we typically feel an energetic hole. Life has lost its luster and everything feels a little heavier, a little harder. We feel like there is love missing from our lives. Love is an amazing motivator and without it our inspiration can drop dramatically. We feel this loss because of our minds, not because of our hearts. Reality is very malleable, created from the world of our thoughts.

Often throughout our relationships we identify with our partner as being Love rather than realizing that Love only exists within us and that we only share our love with them. We mistakenly believe that they are our Love, rather than they are what reflects our love. We see love in our partner by the things that we do for them. By the actions that we take, by the things that we share, by the things that we say. We feel love because of the smile that we see on our partner’s faces as we show our true selves, as we become completely vulnerable and honest and real. Love is a mirror. That is why it is always said you cannot love someone until you love yourself, because you will never like the reflection you see – no matter what you do.

Love cannot be taken away from you by anyone. Love is inside you. Love is created by you. You are Love’s progenitor. You are a Love Generator. There is no one in the world, no scientist, no Super villain that has worked out how to reach inside a person and remove love from that person. If we feel a lack of love it is because we have chosen to feel a lack of love. By realizing and recentering your love in you, you create a freedom in which no other person is responsible for your love but you. So often we hand off our love to others and say: “Here! Watch this and don’t drop it!” We put all the responsibility on them to generate and nurture our love. Well that’s just not going to work! Take responsibility for your love and you will find a lot less problems in the way that you experience your relationships and you will find an even greater truth to love. You get what you give!

If you want to really experience love then it comes from what you give. Sir Isaac Newton spoke of it when he was describing the laws of all forces in the universe. Every action has an opposite and equal reaction and Love is the most fundamental force. Love by its nature is a binding force that results in a whole greater than the sum of its parts. We see its attractive force work all throughout nature under the guise of different names and equations, but it’s always pointing to the same force. Cells, people, societies, galaxies etc. – it is always the same. Love is the unifying force that creates, and we have to give to it in order to get back. It’s the only way you deserve to receive.

So ensure that you give love and you will get it back in return. Take responsibility for your love. Take responsibility for what you give and you will be treated with the same respect and love that you give. It is a law of reciprocity. Remember this! So give and you will get. The people in your life are there to help share and build the connection of love with you so that your experience of it can be the best it can be. Isn’t that worth being thankful for every single one of them?!

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Whale Wisdom: “Give Thanks!”

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Some people think that they have days where they don’t have a reason to smile, that their lives are void of love and so they look to the outside world to get it. They want people to give it to them. They want products to give it to them. They want drugs to give it to them. They look for anyway they can find it outside of themselves. But we are always FILLED with the highest potential of experiencing Love. Love is essentially an emotional experience that makes us feel whole and satisfied about who we are at that moment in our lives. Good feelings such as the feeling of love can only be felt by you. It only exists inside of you. And that leads us down a path bound for confusion when we look outside ourselves for something that only exists within.

Smile for what you are thank ful for and the world will smile with you

When we feel a lack of love in our lives it is because we are blocking love with our unconscious thinking. We say and focus on thoughts that do not serve us or make us feel good about ourselves. They are not real! Our thoughts are one a train of possibilities and its up to us to choose the reality that we want. Love is always with us and it is just about working with it in a way that serves us. One powerful way to clear the blockage and change your thinking is through Gratitude – when you give thanks for the things in your life, you open yourself up to a new way of experiencing your world and you open up the potential to get happy. Real happy! You provide an opening to see life form a different angle; you have found an altered state of consciousness. So get high on thanks!

Life is a realm of parallel realities. There is so much going on in the one scene of your life in this moment that you can’t possibly be aware of it all. So you get to choose upon what you focus on. Some realities that you focus on won’t serve you and leave you feeling unsatisfied, whereas others will leave you feeling filled to the top with love. Our brains can be set to look for and connect to things that are at our emotional frequency. For instance sad people connect to more slower emotionally heavier songs whereas happier people will tend to connect to upbeat and livelier songs. So start with gratitude and you will preset your brain to an awareness that will allow your mind to be attracted to those things going on around you that are at the same emotional frequency of what you were grateful for. You will be attracted to focussing on all the wonderful thing that will leave you feeling satisfied and you will have gained control of a large part of what leaves you sad and empty. Your smile will be contagious as you connect with people on your emotional frequency and your Joie de vive will lift people up to your level rather than have them pull you down to theirs. So give thanks for the amazing things in your life and you will have an amazing day filled with all things love surrounding you!

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Seek happiness and success will find you – 21 days to retrain your brain

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We are constantly seeing, hearing and reading about people having break downs, how our friends are feeling sad, celebrity couples ending their relationships and the world generally dissatisfied with their lives. Even Heidi Klum and Seal broke up. Seal ended it with a woman who has been consistently thought of as the most beautiful women in the world. How can someone not be happy with the most beautiful woman in the world you may ask?
We know what happiness feels like, because we have all had it but then it just seems to slip away and we are left dealing instead with stresses and pressures rather than basking in the glow of the glory of our happiness. So what is it that constantly leads us to our state of disillusionment with the world? The answer is… The view!

We keep on looking outside ourselves for happiness. Jobs, partners, possessions. However our external world only has about 10% to do with our happiness. Where we need to be looking is at the 90%. This is where the real view is: our inner world. We spend all our time trying to fix up what we see in that outside 10% and leaving the large majority of how we see the world from the inside as unkempt and in disarray. How do we beautify and create an amazing internal landscape? How do you change your thinking?

Oddly enough your happiness and success doesn’t really have anything to do with your head, it has to do with your heart. Back in medieval times the heart was considered the center of consciousness and there may be good reason to start giving some thought to that again. 75% of personal success and happiness has been shown to be accounted for by three things: 1) Optimism, 2) Social Support and 3) Your ability to see stress as a challenge instead of a threat. These three things are what you need to be looking at rather than your bank account and the car you have or the job title or partner that you are showing off currently. This is where our focus is backwards.

Every time we reach a success, we are aware of an even better goal that we want to reach. Got a job, want a better job. Got a car, want a better car. Got a trophy, want a bigger one. The end points are constantly shifting, like trying to catch a rainbow. Happiness seems to be sitting on the other side of that rainbow but this is really a hamster wheel that leaves you eternally chasing. The real truth about happiness is the exact opposite to what we think it is. We have to reach happiness first in order to find success. And lucky for us psychologists and scientists have found some simple exercises that utilize those three elements of optimism, social support and reframing stressors in order to retrain our brains to be able to look at the world and change the view to leave us happy and in control of our lives.

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. Albert Schweitzer (1875 –1965) Nobel Peace Prize Winning Medical Missionary

Change you brain in 21 days

Every evening, for the next 21 days:

• Write down 3 things you were grateful for. This starts to retrain your brain to begin to look for those things that leave you feeling good.

Every morning for the next 21 days, rotate each day between these following 3 things:

1) Write a journal entry recalling something good that happened the day before.
• This allows you to relive and remember that your life is filled with good experiences.
2) Meditate – Sit cross-legged with your back against the wall for 15 minutes and only focus on your breath going in and out your nose. Notice as your mind gets caught on a thought and then bring your mind back to your breath.
• This allows to teach your body that behavior matters and helps train your mind to focus on one thing rather than your mind bouncing around.
3) Perform a random/ conscious act of kindness – Send a friend in your social circle a thank you note. Buy someone you don’t know a coffee. Invite a friend out to lunch.
• This will remind you that you are not alone in this world, but that you are loved and you are a relevant member of society. By giving you will open yourself up to receive and you will gain much greater insights into your life and your happiness

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Spawning creativity. Borrowing genius

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A busy morning, a gaggle of gentlemen, the sound of traffic loudly impresses its presence as each person struggles to hear one another over the ambient sounds. There is one difference today to their meeting… they talk as if they were back in the French Salons of the early 18th century. Amongst them are the great minds of the enlightenment who together in a soup of genius spawned many of the fundamental ideas that built the foundation of today’s society. We call these ideas inspired, and the men, genius for they certainly were, but there was something else that they often don’t talk about and we are rarely aware of it.

As we look back at these men and their creations, many of these inspired ideas did not come from a single source, but in fact from a plethora of ideas spun together over countless hours of idea pondering with their peers, past and present. We often find ourselves ruminating over a thought and then we speak to someone about something unrelated and we creak open another moment closer to realizing the truth of our insight. We read or hear something and our minds open themselves again to it even more. The idea is like Michelangelo’s David, Mike always saw him there in the stone but instead of the hand of the great maestro our ideas come from a thousand hands chipping away at revealing the idea until finally it is revealed by the one man who laid the seed.

Your creativity is literally mental intercourse. It is bringing together two separate ideas from different sources and having them intermingle and spawn a new modified version of the idea. Then from another source an idea comes along and again infuses and impregnates to create another and even more unique form. This may go on and on over time, you are constantly nurturing an idea, this time instead of in a belly, it is inside your mind. It changes form, becoming completely unrecognizable from when you first had the seed of the thought, but you love it even more. Finally without even realizing it, you feel something snap, it comes rushing like water but its something else. It comes unexpectedly but you knew it lay on the horizons… The idea you’d been waiting for!!! How wonderful.

A feeling of elation comes over you and you are filled with such hope and excitement for what lies before this new thing that you have birthed. And so we must give thanks as we remember that it is through our mental intercourse and our mutual respect and love for our peers, past, present and future that they too are the shared progenitors of the ideas that we spawn.

And by the way, once we birth the idea then we have to give to get it up on its feet…………………………… But that’s a whole other story!

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One step backwards at a time

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We as humans are forever growing. We are constantly looking at who we are, ever trying to better create ourselves. To have control of our finances, of our emotions, of our relationships… of life!!! We reach crises points in our lives and then try to break out of the mold we have created by reinventing ourselves. We buy the latest do it yourself book, get the latest fashions, the latest gizmo, try the latest fad or just join the gym. We immediately feel proud of ourselves, optimistic about the future and capable of being agents of change and growth in our lives.

So often though, when we make changes we feel great at first but then that feeling of elation slowly dissipates. To make a true and permanent change in your life requires more than a one-day commitment. The wisdom that you gain about yourself is not something that you just learn in one moment and then it stays forever. We have a lifetime of thought and living patterns that are deeply embedded in our subconscious as life programs. So that whenever we are required to act more often than not we are reacting to something that has happened. It is when we react that we immediately move into our old behaviour programs.

We see this behaviour most often when we are avoiding an emotion that doesn’t make us feel good. We therefore employ a program that has, in the past, helped us alleviate the problem before. But this only works for the short-term. Sure enough, in a day, a month, a year, the problems always inevitably creep back. Often we know what we need to do for long-term change, which is the reason why we started the new program in the first place. However, this long-term option is often thwarted because we react to a bump or distraction and move more easily back to the known short-term program that only acts as a momentary band-aid. We can see this as examples when we aren’t feeling good about ourselves instead of exercising, we will eat some ice cream in front of the TV. Or we follow a dream but because it doesn’t manifest immediately we simply give up early on in the journey.

We must be more aware of who we are and what we want. Whatever you choose to bring into your life, you must choose it as a daily practice, as a new way of life. Something you felt motivated you to the point where you were actually driven to enact this idea for the betterment of your self and your life. So now that you were given a revelation about how to change old patterns, you must act on it as a commitment to yourself and the practice itself.

To better understand this we can think of it the same way as when you first get into a hot bath. At first the temperature is hot, but then you acclimatize to the new heat. This is fine at first, you can handle the slight drop but then slowly the heat will dissipate and ultimately you drop down to the old temperature. This is the same as taking on a new program in that you start off cooking but slowly you get cold on the idea. You feel uncomfortable and uninspired having gone back to the old world. It is up to you to lift yourself, keep providing action and re-stoke the fires every day, every moment in order to keep yourself cooking in this new space. Keep yourself elevated and inspired by the actions.

To do this you need to choose reachable goals. Don’t pick something that you just know is impossible. 100 push ups a day. Write an entire business and marketing plan in a day. If your goals are unreachable you will become overwhelmed by the enormity of the task and immediately deflate. If you feel overwhelmed by the size of a task – cut in half. If that begins to feel like too much then… cut that in half. Keep moving forward. Keep providing energy to the engine of your idea so that it continues to chug along. Sooner or later you will build some momentum and then you will be cooking with gas.

To help you with your goals get clear on your values. What type of person do you want to be? How do you want to see yourself? If you want to know yourself as someone who has control of their lives and dreams then keep this at the forethought of your mind when you start to want to just go and sit on the couch. When you want to give up. Sometimes it helps to have a friend to stoke the fires, get a buddy or a mentor someone who you want to work with and commit to bringing about change in your life. Obligations and commitments you make to your friends and community is one of the biggest motivators. That’s why we have gym buddies. Soldiers have been recorded as saying they no longer are risking their lives for their country or ideals but for the person next to them. Use whatever and whoever you can to help bring about change and deeply root these new behaviour patterns.

Something to remember about learning new ways to be in life is that eventually you will make new programs, and these behaviors, that were so hard at first, will become second nature to you and you wont have to try anymore. This then allows you to create more space to learn even more powerful behaviors about your life and how to master it even more.

Exercise 1

GOALS

– Get clear on your goal and write it down
– Work backwards step by step from the end to where you are now.
– Map out what you need to do to reach the goal
– If a step is too big – cut it in half

Exercise 2
VALUES
– Imagine you are at your funeral. Write down a short paragraph about how you would want to be remembered and How you want to think about yourself?
– Take these positive characteristics about yourself and when you feel your motivation waning. Take a breath and remember how you want to be remembered and what you will need to do at the moment to make that happen

AND REMEMBER FROM THE GREAT WORDS OF THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD —

“I THINK”….”I CAN!!!!!”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx9xO98kcBU&feature=related]

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The Ego trips

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How interesting the reaction one person can make upon their feelings being hurt. They lash out in some futile manner trying not to heal but instead to harm. They want to take what was taken from them. What is it about an eye for an eye that is so consuming? The ego or personality is a place of immense power and control in our lives. It is thought to exist as personality and contains all the programs necessary to exist in the world. The same way that the muscles around our spine have learnt to compensate for injury in order to keep us standing tall so too does our ego implement behavioral programs in order to protect us. Often though we protect ourselves at the detriment of ourselves because are we really trying to protect ourselves or our ego. Because if our ego fails our world feels like it will all come tumbling down.

Our ego deliciously forms early in life. Some say from before the time of birth, but I like think to about it from the perspective of the rule of 7. The rule of 7 states that approximately every 7 years we move into a new stage of being. The first (0-7) is about learning the social norms and about how we exist in the world. The second (7-14) is our learning of control in the world. This means we understand ourselves relative to another and the power we exert of others. We start to learn about relationships with things and people. The next seven (14-21) further identifies our purpose and inclinations in this world for who we want to be. We can can begin to look at the development of the ego in each of these stages. Our parents and guardians in the first 7 years help guide how we handle mistakes and understand who we are. The ways that we need to act in this world. As we progress we learn from our now friends and family how we are to relate to people and what we get from them. By gaining these wisdoms we define who we are. We ultimately learn to understand ourselves through the actions that we have attained to operate in the world. And when these lines of controlling the world are violated we lash out in order to invalidate the people who are highlighting the way that we know how to live is faulty.

This is the reason why people who subscribe to religion are so vehemently opposed to criticism, because religion explains the meaning of life. The way to operate in life. It explains the finer purpose and gives a definable construct about life and existence in a way that enables a person to feel like they have control. Science does exactly the same thing. It gives us a verifiable way in which to understand life so that we may feel that there are rules that we can follow to survive. That there are lines and objects that we can give definitions to so that we can know what things are and feel safe about them. When we lose that control we lash out. When we feel unsafe we feel alone and vulnerable. That we don’t have a connection to anything or anyone. We want to take the power back in order to provide that stability again to our understanding of life. It is the behavioral programs that provide the feeling of stability and control. But ultimately when we implement the programs we are left feeling more hurt. More empty. a greater level of dissatisfaction. We have maintained the status quo. Our ego is still intact, but at what cost? How do we handle our life in a win-win manner? So what to do?

Well there might be a way. What if the norm wasn’t “an eye for an eye” but instead “human to err, divine to forgive”. We must surely heal and move through the hurt so much smoother if we were to easily be able to forgive. But our ego steps in and asks for it to be recognized. Acknowledge me. See me. Hear me. Tell me that I matter. Tell me that I am real. Well there is another place that we can hear all that and it doesn’t rely on any connection to a person or group it relies on your connection to you and you’re giving to something bigger than yourself. You exist whether someone sees you or not. Whether someone shows you affection or not. It is from that space of connecting to something bigger that we can hold conviction. That we can hold integrity. It relies on trust and faith. In ourselves. In our dreams. I trust in the future and I hope you do too? Thank you.