Tag Archives: Psychology

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Don’t try and change what exists. Instead create a new space for your dreams.

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Each and every one of us has the option to live as an Extropist, someone who steps powerfully towards chaos and transforms the energy into a usable form. The Extropist often is working towards creating their purpose, as purpose is one of the greatest motivators that we can use to materialize our dreams. However, many of us have spent much time chasing dreams only to find that they constantly slip through our fingers. Why is it that our goals can be so slippery, and what can we do to help our chances in realizing these elusive manifestations in our life?

One thing that may help you along your path is the fact that everything that you see has already happened. That sounds a bit confusing, so let me further explain. The time it takes for light to bounce off an object to reach our eye and then be processed by our brain is milliseconds past the actual occurrence of the event itself.

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This is important to note because what it means is that you will always be one step behind the event you are trying to change. This is why it can be so difficult to catch a rabbit with your hands, because the goal you are trying to reach has already moved. Therefore, don’t try to change what already exists. Instead create new conditions to move into.

The hunter knows not to chase after the rabbit but instead to create the right conditions in which the rabbit will come straight into his grasp. This is the same for catching your dreams. Know what things you need to do to have your dream come to you. If you are attracting a partner, don’t chase them around instead create the person that you need to be in which the partner will come to you. What type of person do you need to be to attract your dream partner into your life? If it’s a job, if you simply turn up to job interviews, chasing any open position, the job will already be gone by the time you arrive instead, what are the things you need to do to be an employ at your perfect job? What do the other employees of this job do? What is the company passionate about and how can your actions better create an inspiration of similar interests?

We can create changes in our lives to use our energy efficiently and effectively so that we can harness the chaos that surrounds us and use it to our advantage. This is further emphasized by the famous physicist Niels Bohr, who said, “Nature abhors a vacuum”. He meant that if there is a condition in the Universe where nothing exists, the Universe will work with great urgency to fill this space. This works all the way from quantum states and the zero-point field to more classical Newtonian states such as diffusion. What this means to our story, is that by setting up the right conditions, the Universe will actually push our dreams towards us in ways that not only seem improbable but actually impossible. But this is how some of the most amazing and magical loves have been ignited and baby businesses have boomed. It is all by setting up the right conditions within oneself and the entity than trying to chase down an elusive goal.

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When you know what your dream is, instead of spending the time running around chasing it, spend some needed time to understand what conditions you need in yourself and the situation in which you can allow the dreams to come to you. Start with a piece of paper and write down exactly what your life will be like when you are living your dream. Then try and action as many of those conditions as possible so that you are beginning to create a space for your dreams that needs to be filled. In this way, Life will turn on its axis in the most unusual ways to have you realize your dreams in order that it will fill the space that you have created.

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Follow your Bliss…The hero’s journey always reaches their dreams

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Everything that we do in life is a journey. It is in fact a hero’s journey. A journey of growth and learning on how to better ourselves by tackling the darkest aspects of ourselves. These can be fraught with dark moments of doubt and shame. But we must remember to hold strong to our dreams and know what are the essential characteristics that will allow the hero to vanquish the demons that lie before us on the road to a hero’s victory.

We can think of any task that lies before us as all part of the hero’s journey. Relationships work the same way we think of exams, and the same way we think of making money, these are a means to an end. These are tasks set before the hero to prove their worth on the road to his dreams. They are a currency that we use to reach our dream. They are the things that give us security and feed our egos but they aren’t our dreams. I have not heard of any person in their life saying, “when I grow up, I want to be a person that gets the best grades”. No, typically people dream of being a doctor or an architect or a fireman. These are of course arbitrary. The point is that they dream about becoming someone who does something of worth and provides something, whether it is their love, or something or service to the rest of the world.

When you define ‘why’ you want your dream, you elicit emotional responses deep in your physiology that will drive and motivate you with the joy you receive from your dreams to reach the person you want to be. So, who do you want to be when you grow up? Don’t think about the “how”, focus on the “what” and the “why”? What do you want to be? A doctor. Great! Why? A designer. Great! Why? A wonderful partner. Great! Why?

Your “why” will also give you an armour to protect you on this treacherous path. It will give you a resilience to keep on charging forward when you have taken a blow to your psyche and your dreams. Our love for a dream is what has every hero reach their goal, no matter what the challenge that falls before them. So give energy to define who you will be in your future and you will be able to reach whatever dream you have in your mind. The definition gives a context for why you are doing the things that precede the dream so that you can reach it. It means that when you are working on a relationship, studying, working hard to get a business started or putting in a big effort as an intern, you can use your passion for your dream to motivate you and understand that this is one step closer to becoming a reality.

Which leads me to the second part of the hero’s story. Once you understand your dream and have defined why you are taking the long journey to its gates, you then need to bring your head back from out of the clouds and focus back on your task. Whether you are studying, working, or paying your dues. You must give to the task with everything you’ve got, like this is the only step on your journey, and then you will take another step with the next task, class or client and you will give to that with everything you’ve got. Eventually, you will have taken the thousand-mile journey and walked the path one step at a time with integrity and grace. You will have learnt all that you need to prepare you to open the doors and walk through the gates of your dream.

The best thing about all of this is that originally you will begin your journey on the promise of the glory of your riches but ultimately the real treasure will have come from the journey you took to reach your dream rather than the dream itself. This is something to remember and hold in a prominent position in your mind because when you begin to feel overwhelmed by the task at hand, you can be thankful that you will overcome this obstacle, and when you do, reaching the ultimate goal will mean so much more than if it was given to you on a silver platter. So I ask that you enjoy the difficult times, remember why you are doing them to give them a context that motivates you. Give to the task at hand like it is the only task that you have to do and give to it with all your might, energy and love.

With these tools at your hand, you will be able to tackle any troubling times to reach any goal that you have and bring a new richness to any and every task that lies before you. You are the hero of your life and the only person that needs to believe in you… is you. Good LucK and Follow Your Bliss!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAE8fPbXr58&w=560&h=315]

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Dream Big, Think Small

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So often we find ourselves asking the question what does it all mean? Why am I here and what am I doing? We usually find ourselves asking this same question in the same place. A place that is the most relevant to be asking and more often than not the most depressing space, and that is… our job. So often our careers are the most dissatisfying element of our lives, yet they are where we spend the most amount of time. We spend in fact, outside of sleeping, the majority of our day at work. So what is work and what can it be for us? It can be that which truly fulfills and nourishes who we are inside. It is not just a proxy to our dreams, it is the real thing. Our work is the space where we can step forward and fulfill our purpose. This is a very important idea, because it answers the age-old question why are we here? Well each person is here to answer their own question. Another way of saying this is that there is no meaning to life except for the meaning that you give it. That meaning is your dream!

The bigger the dream you choose the harder it will be to fulfill, but also the more meaning you will receive from life. Taking meaning from life fulfills you as you step towards that dream. For instance, if your dream goal is to make $1000, you will work towards it and reach that goal and then what? You will have to make another goal. There is nothing wrong with this and it is actually a very effective method, when you know what the FINAL outcome is. The big dream that you are trying to reach. This may be daunting to think what this dream could be, but once you select it you can then begin to take steps towards it. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the father of optimal functioning, said initially the goal justifies the means but ultimately the means justifies the goal. What this means is that while you originally thought the luster of the treasure at the end of the rainbow is what will give you the satisfaction in life, in fact it’s the journey that you went on to get to the that makes the dream and the life all worthwhile.

So why tell you all this? It’s because while you have to dream big you have to also think small. Because if you try to contemplate the magnitude of your dreams you will become overwhelmed and literally become nauseas from the great heights you will have to climb. What I mean by ‘think small’ is only focus on the step in front of you and give everything you have to that one step. Think about everything that you will need to do and break them up into smaller packets of events. If those seem too big then break those down. Each one is like a brick in the wall. Instead of focusing on the wall and the thousands of bricks you have to lift up and put in place only focus on the brick itself and make sure that you really put it in place properly. If the brick is too big break it up. It’s more important that you can handle the brick than get to your goal quickly. As my friend said to me, “you don’t have to eat the elephant in one go”.

Remember what Aesop told us about the hare and the tortoise. Life is not a race, you are running only for yourself. Find patience and pace yourself by what you need to accomplish to reach the finishing line of your dream. If you compare yourself with those faster than you, you will be overwhelmed and doubt yourself and your chances. If you compare yourself with those slower than you, you will become arrogant and sloppy. Focus only on the tasks in front of you and give to them. You won’t waste your resources thinking about other people or your performance capabilities. Keep your attention outside on what you have to accomplish.

Slow and steady wins the race.
Aesop (Greek slave & fable author, 620 BC – 560 BC)

What does this mean in a real-life application? If you were talking about a dream job? What are the things you need to do to get the job? Know the job you want. Know the person you need to be for that job emotionally, mentally and physically. See yourself in that job and understand the things that you will do. Know the reason why you want the job. Understand that it is in your planning that you will become clear on who we need to be now to reach our dreams. Sun Tzu (Chinese General – The Art of War, 500 BC) said “Now, the general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought.”

We must understand the person we need to be for our dream. Whilst we have patience for the dream we have to embody the person that we will become. We have to take an active role in our transformation of becoming the hero of our journey. To take the planning further and create a greater belief of the hero in you. So know what you will do when you get the job. Know who you will tell and how you will feel. Know what this job means to you and write it down. Write it all down and take action where you can. Take action and give powerfully to every life detail of your big life dreams. Life wants you to take the reins and give the meaning that only you know it can have for you, because when you are the main actor in your life… Well then, all the world is your stage!

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New Health comes from Knowing the ‘What’ and the ‘Why’

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One of our most important creations, if not our most important, is health. There is a beautiful truth in the saying, “if we don’t have our health we don’t have anything”. There is a great wisdom in this as we always must remember that our bodies are our temples and our engines. They need sanctity as well as maintenance. And we can do both those thing through respecting ourselves by giving to ourselves time, space and love through gratitude. There are times however when our bodies break down and require maintenance from inappropriate or over use. We then get sick or have afflictions that need to be remedied. There are always lessons to be learnt with affliction and we can look at these with great gratitude and openness for without them we may have completely run off the rails and no longer exist.

When we have a problem with our bodies, we look for ways to heal ourselves. Through the advances of medical science we as a civilization have created many physical healing aids that have led to a great boon in medical practice and ultimately the well-being of its patients. Outside of the medical practice there has been many examples of more energetic phenomenon, which have not yet been explainable by traditional medical science and instead labeled miracles. And then there have been advances in the mind and psychology that have taught people how to best progress with such afflictions and how to create a change in their mindset to rectify what the suffering they may be causing themselves.

I bring all this to your attention because your subconscious mind connects with life and the Universe around us in many different ways and the path of healing is not a single road. In particular, neither is the way life likes to travel in the Universe’s matrix. Therefore, you can create whatever dream you have by using the steps of Asking for what changes you want in your life to occur, Believe and act that it is possible, and open yourself up to Receive as we have to believe that we are worthy of a change for it to happen. Thus to Receive you must believe you Deserving. So instead of getting bogged down by the intellectual elements of the how things are going to happen, which only limit the avenues of life to work in the Universe, focus on the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ things are going to happen.

The ‘what’ is the power of your thought. It creates the image, or the blueprint, of the reality that you want to create in your life. However your thoughts are only that, blueprints they are as thin as paper. What you need is some real power and that comes from the ‘why’. Why do you want to be healed? What is working in your life with this ailment? What will work better in your life when you are healed? What will you do in your life when you are healed?

When you know not only the ‘what’ but also the ‘why’ of the things you want to create in your life, and you leave the infinite possibility of ‘how’ up to the Universe, then you will be well on your way to creating great change in your life and bring beautiful and radiant health. So write a list of what you want to happen and then write why. Write all the things you are grateful for doing and experiencing when you feel great. Try and feel how it feels when you feel great and when you feel grateful for those things that make you feel great. Your positivity and joy is a great healer and will begin you on your journey to health along with the purpose you find from your why’s defined by what you want in your life.

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Become a Creator and Thrive through the Hard Times

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When someone speaks ill of you or about something you associate yourself with, they are taking from you. When someone takes something from you, like you dignity or feeling of self-worth, then you want to take back. Often we do this by finding ourselves in an argument or agreeing with them and feeling bad about ourselves. There are two ways in which to work under these conditions in which to grow the most from them. The first is to unidentify from who you think you are and instead realize that you are who you are at that moment. It then hurts because people are creating a split in what you think your reality is versus what they think what reality is and so because of that dissonance we fight to diminish their projected reality in order that we can hold our own as real. We can therefore give no credence to their words or we cannot be attached to our own.

While this can be effective in knowing about our fight for a stable reality, there is another way however that can be more effective and more easily understood and actioned. For this to work we first must consider the age-old law of the Newtonian Universe – every action has an opposite and equal reaction. In other words, by giving you shall receive. This means in these difficult situations in which people are taking from you, you can ensure within yourself that you are not taking but giving through an understanding that they know not what they are creating for themselves. These people will undoubtedly be taken from to balance out the Newtonian equation. It is not for you to be that person to try to rebalance it, but trust that in these actions, there are always consequences in order to rebalance the Universe. Therefore, you don’t always have to be the person that conveys the lesson in what they are doing wrong but show them through your positive way of being how the situation can be. They will experiences the consequences of their destructive behaviour and if you are the person who tries to show it to them it means that you may only be creating an even greater moment of destruction in your own life.

There is always an energy equation in everything that takes place in the Universe and thus will always need to be balanced. When a person expels negative energy out into the Universe this will undoubtedly be rebalanced by the person receiving this energy back. Therefore this provides an amazing opportunity for you to practice compassion Learn more in: Compassion is a Tool to Rule your Heart (http://bit.ly/N0XH6k). In compassion comes an immeasurable act of giving that will unequivocally give back to you ten fold if you can give back to a person that is trying to take from you. When you can transform a negative situation into a positive one, you become a creator. A creator is part of what it means to be an Extropist, a person that changes the spin of the chaotic cycle to one of harmony and greater sophistication. As a creator you work to lift the total energy of this world toward a positive balance. As history progresses we have become ever more complex, sophisticated and conscientious to the point where we will naturally turn the tides from a world that is framed with negative events to one that is ever more connected and harmonious.

So I offer that through these difficult times you find compassion for these types of people who know not what they are doing and find a sense of love for whom they are and the journey they have been on. When you watch a film about a person’s transformation from a bad to a good person, you always see that the hero has been through hell along their journey and so too will the person that is making you feel bad. They are typically fighting a very hard battle with themselves and it just so happens that they are releasing their negativity on you, the obliging person in front of them. So hold strong to the beautiful and powerful person that you are, and understand the consequences of their actions. Instead you can give openly to a person taking and that you can become a creator, who simply in this one act of compassion has helped change the world into a better place.

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Realizing how small you are in the Universe leaves you feeling BIG

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In looking at the way of the world and how it works, we can consider a time gone by when the world was heavily influenced by God. God helped explain our actions and drove our choices. We needed God to help explain the mystery of life AND death. We needed God to explain why the world worked the way that it did, and we needed God to help us work out where we were headed as a world.

You see, we used religion and God to help explain the framework of how life operated, so that we could have a sense of control and a feeling of safety in this chaotic world. This, however, lead to some interesting and questionable choices by religion in order to protect the stability of its framework. Religion declared war on those around them that spoke of a different framework of life and thus, provided alternative arguments that may endanger the stability found in the current framework of life. Time and time again we read of people doing unthinkable and amoral actions in order to protect the mental framework that affords them so much security about the way life works.

As the world gained in its wealth of cumulative knowledge through the Gospel of Science, people found more concrete and reliable answers about the framework of life that appeared to supersede even God. Slowly but surely, as information became the ever-greater currency, God was no longer needed to help keep our reality concrete. With each passing generation humanity moved further and further away from looking to God and the dogma of religion for answers about how to be in this world.

Whilst people have found a great freedom in Science that allows them to let go of some of the antiquated rituals of the past, unfortunately many of those rituals included guides not only about the way things worked but about how people worked. Without many of these ideas from religion, we were never taught about life being so much bigger than who we are, about not taking things so personally, or about the fact that dreams are possible simply by will. Without the values of religion we were never taught about sanctities of friendship, about mutual respect, about living with appreciation and wonder. Without religion we were thrown into a world of chaos and isolation that left us no sense of continuity of life and death and life with other life.

When we left the education of our values to sensationalized and pop media, no wonder we are left to see children with guns and drugs, people with the full gamut of unseen and unknown mental illness as well as the shameless exploitation of the world we live in. When we did away with religion, we through the baby out with bath water and left no moral grounding for our highest values to grow from. In the modern world we may have gained a stronger framework for reality but lost the framework for being human.

Whilst the role of religion degraded and money pervaded, there had been a simultaneous new framework that grew out of the decline of the old religious dogma. The hippy movement, while too extreme for the times, began to trial ideas of high values taken from many of the great religions from around the globe. They synthesized these ideas into a place that required no regiment to control with, no positions of power to be abused and no codes to punish with. A sense of personal responsibility was incited and personal freedom was highlighted.

Unfortunately when you give a child matches when they have not properly learnt how to handle the responsibility of the power in their hands they will inevitably get burnt. However, slowly over time, the populous matures with more and more people learning about their own personal responsibility, their symbiotic connection to the world around them and the gift and majesty that life is. This new framework is one without dogma, a more free-flowing construct that embraces the highest ideals of who we are and who we can be for each other and the world. This new framework, we can call “Spirituality”. We can be religious and not spiritual, we can be both and we can be spiritual without religion.
I offer you these following elements as a place to begin opening yourself to your spirituality:

Everyday for the next two weeks, start your day by giving thanks for ten things in your life and end your day by giving thanks for the best thing that happened to you that day. This begins to open you up to the wonder of your life that you are so lucky to experience.

Meditate for ten minutes, by sitting comfortably, closing your eyes and focus on your in and out breath. When you lose your mind to turmoil, catch your thoughts and bring your mind back to your breath. By meditating, we create a space separate from the world, where we can see that there is a peace within us. We create a buffer from the chaos and randomness of life, and with patience learn to let it blow over us like a storm. We teach ourselves to slow down and simplify our lives, that all we need to feel good is to breathe.

Finally, walk in a park, go on a hike or walk in nature. Really pay attention to all that you are a part of. Notice that this is one moment, in one place, on a world that is filled with unimaginable amounts of such beauty and moments in a Universe that is infinitely larger than what we could even try to understand. Truly think about how big that actually is, and you can see within all of this exists that you are one moment in the mix of many. Whilst that may be overwhelming at first I offer that you can simply be glad to know that you have been given the opportunity to collaborate and contribute to the workings of the Universe, and know that you have the ability to leave this place better than when you found it simply by smiling at your neighbor, helping out a stranger, and hugging someone who you love.

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Your Expectations Color and Create Your Reality

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If our experiences have asked us to look at the world as a sad and dangerous place, full of hate and malice, would we not perpetuate that and thus invite more of this chaos into our lives? It makes sense that it would. We so often learn by example. And then this would become the natural and automatic flow of your life. Action – Reaction. Thus chaos begets chaos and we head down the ever slippery slope towards an entropic resolve in which our lives cease to function in harmony.

This seems like the way that life actually operates, and more often than not it is. But thankfully there is also another process of life that exists that allows us to nullify the first. If you add more energy into the system, the system being the natural order of your life, you can actually change the downward direction of it and have it begin to swing in your favor. Instead of the natural and innate downward cycle that exists in life and the Universe, we can redeem ourselves and begin to build up again along the spiral staircase of self by giving more energy to that which serves and inspires us and makes us feel good about our lives.

This new perspective asks that the introduction of energy needed, that results in positive growth, requires you to focus on the good in the system of your life. By giving positive energy and believing in the best in people and those things surrounding you, you may actually create a different perspective and invite a different experience into your life. Actively give thanks for your surroundings and visualize the beautiful world that you want to experience and you will prep your day and life to notice those opportunities and subtleties that will make your dreams come true. In a single scene in your life you will see many things but you will miss many more. Just in that one scene more things than you will register in your entire life is occurring right in front of you but you will only focus on the things that you are expecting to see. Our minds do this so that we can actually give a good amount of cognitive energy to those things important to us otherwise we would be completely debilitated by the infinite stream of information that bombards our brains. Therefore, it is so important to prime your mind because what you expect to see your mind will already be looking for in your life’s scenes.

This has been shown time and time again that our mood and our expectations have us see our preconceived notions and typically miss out on many obvious things that are right there in front of our face. The truth of the matter still holds that we create our own reality, which is a blessing and a curse, because if you have always believed life to be bad, and therefore your next experience to be bad, then your brain is naturally looking to see those things that prove that it is bad. Instead, if you focus on the things that are beautiful and joyful that you are grateful for, your mind will naturally look to see those things and that is your blessing. Your expectations create your reality, however you have the option to change and recreate your reality simply by changing your feelings and thoughts about your life. Hence your experience of life will follow the expectations you set your mind to see. Please watch this video as a demonstration.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGQmdoK_ZfY&w=560&h=315]

The trick to this is not that you should ‘believe it when you see it’, but instead focus on the fact that you will ‘see it when you believe it’. The change in perspective comes from an active role taken to change, and not from the sitting around waiting for it to be shown to you. You have to go out and make the change. You have to be the change. You are a Human Being, not a Human Waiting. We must be active in our change otherwise we will fall down the natural slippery slope to chaos and despair.

So go out and smile with the world and the people around you. Think about all the wonderful things that surround you in life and you will set your expectations to see them. You will be happier and more joyful, when you see that you are surrounded by the things that make you grateful for your life. Even in the darkest moments if you focus on things that make you happy, your mind will more likely be able to see the brighter side of these typically unforgiving situations. Be vulnerable and know that you may get a bump or two, because if you are willing to learn, you will realize that these bumps are teaching you how to walk without hurting yourself. Then much more often than not the world will smile back at you and you will realize that there is a whole bounty of things and people waiting to show you that your life is a beautiful place indeed.

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Understanding the Truth of your Roller-Coaster Life

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“Life is a roller-coaster”. Like we’ve never heard that before. But there is more to this roller-coaster ride than meets the eye. Yes, there are the ups and downs. That goes without saying. But there are also the subtler qualities that we don’t normally look at. It is these parts of the ride that I am more interested in.

Life is relative. Our great Einstein showed us this truth. This means that things depend on the perspective from which you look at them. I met a man, who told me about the passing of his son a few years ago. He conveyed his story with such a wealth of wisdom and profundity that I was curious how he gained so much from such trying times. He told me that he learnt to appreciate the small things because sometimes that’s all you have. It is from this idea that I learnt about the relative quality of the roller-coaster we call life. When we are reaching a peak time of our lives we feel great. We continue to feel elated, like a balloon ever rising, however without us even being aware, within a blink of an eye, we have stopped and we are on our way down. Arms up in the air, hearts filled with terror we plummet downwards screaming. None of this would feel all that different from the typical roller-coaster story, except when we begin to think about what happens when we finally reach the bottom. We more often than not, don’t reach our impending doom. We inevitably go up again.

There is always an upside that comes from every down side. We often forget that there is always an ‘up’ again once we reach a ‘bottom’. Instead we become overwhelmed by the idea that we will be going down forever. However as quick as everything can turn bad, so too can we find unexpected joy amidst the darkest moments. The slightest upswing and we can feel as joyful as if we were millionaires. When that glimmer of hope of fortunate possibilities can be seen on the horizon, we immediately feel better and notice that emotional lift again as if we had never been through the past turmoil.

We have been given a gift of respite, a flotation ring, in which an order has washed over the world that felt out of control. Order is emergent, it comes over time and we often just need to find patience to allow a change of fortune. Think about the chaos that existed in the entire evolutionary history of the Earth, it was over a great deal of time that successful strategies eventually emerged to create the order that we know today. This is the relative world that we live in. This is indicative of the relative creatures we are. My friend who lost his child, and himself, in the pit of despair, eventually found that with time, hope and faith his life got better and as he began again his upward trajectory he gained many new joys from the small things that he had in his life. It is so often what we lose that gives us the most because it provides to find just the smallest things that we took for granted. These small things eventually lead to bigger things and finally we find new ways of experiencing life and happiness even amongst all that we had been through and lost.

We can find these relative joys by changing our perspective, or in Einstein’s words, our speed. We are often moving too fast, trying to reach some far out goal as fast as we can, trying to be some ideal version of ourselves now. However, our stress and despair comes from the resistance we feel between the relative distance of where we are and where we think we ought to be. We must endeavor at these times when we feel overwhelmed to break our goals up into smaller parts in order that we can find them more manageable. My friend, who lost his son, endeavored to remember to appreciate the smaller things in life. That just being able to share time with someone you love can literally be the greatest experience in life.

Many spiritual traditions have found great joy in the simple life. By removing the complexities that lead to unnecessary overwhelmment, both physically and mentally, they were able to find a joy from vast discrepancies that exist from who we are to who we want to be. This doesn’t mean don’t aim high, instead it means give to your task in a way that doesn’t highlight the limiting discrepancies of focusing elsewhere but the present moment. Like the great the roller-coaster there is always more than one loop, bump or obstacle on the ride but each one is dealt with as it is presented. Terror is a fleeting physiological but despair lingers as it is made from the mind. Despair on a roller-coaster or great journey arises when we consider how much further is left to go and this is the truth for all experiences in life.

A great saying from a Buddhist monk states, “When you are chopping the carrots, chop the carrots. When you are peeling the potatoes, peel the potatoes.” This highlights that you must be present with what you are doing, wholly and completely. Give everything to the task and you will give your best. When you set such high goals for yourself and hold high standards, the only way to get there is to put one foot in front of the other and don’t focus on the distance between you and the top of the mountain. Know your goal and that you will reach it and that is all you need with it. It is important every once in a while to stop appreciate where you are on your journey. Even in your darkest hour, when you think you are going backwards, find patience and acknowledge how far you have come. With time order, and answers will emerge. Trust in life to present you with an opportunity and yourself to continue managing your obstacles effectively. You will make it and champion your dreams; all you have to do is make sure to enjoy the ride.

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Gratitude Lets you Lift a Light amongst your Shadows

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So often we find ourselves lost in the stormy seas of our emotions. These ominous feelings tower over us, leaving us blinded by a fog of uncertainty. We try to clamour our way through the shadows but we aren’t able to get a grasp on anything. Who is there? Who are we fighting? We are fighting ourselves – our made up monsters of the past that we are too afraid to look at. We lash out or turn away, we numb and distract ourselves in order to be free from vulnerability. But there is a way to move through these dark moments powerfully. Pick yourself up and shine a light. A light of gratitude.

To stay positive when you are surrounded by negativity, try finding what you can be grateful for about the situation and what you are grateful for in your life. If you can lift yourself higher than the situation then the negativity naturally falls away. If you have ended a relationship, have poor health or lost a job, when we give thanks with every moment to the life and love surrounding us, we will have love and support of life reflected back to us. We see how wonderful the world is by the inspiration we see in the world and in people. It is in others actions that we realize who we are. So I say this to you. You have not lost anything, you have only changed your mirror that reflected how beautiful the love inside you is.

When you are aware of this, the Universe will naturally present an opportunity that you are able to see because you are in the space that will be able to be aware of a more joyous and opportune reality. If you connect into the negativity or even if you resist it rather than reframe it you will not be able to lift above the clouds. It requires you to take a step towards change, a step in which you must exert a moment of effort beyond wallowing in the natural despair of any negative situation. A step of gratitude will infuse the situation with new, fresh energy that will reverse the cycle of chaos toward one of new growth and creation.

It is your Gratitude that will transform the dire situations in your life to shine like gold and open you up to experiences that the average person would close themselves off to because of the fear of letting go from what they have grown to know. These experiences of fear are what typically move us to our more primitive and lower states of consciousness rather than toward our higher selves which is what we need to move to, in order to reach an evolution in our own psyche and person.

These experiences of chaos can be invited as messengers of growth. Were you really happy in that relationship, with that job. Were you really treating your body with love and respect? It is when we act from our highest states of consciousness that we transform dire situations. When people stand tall, true and vulnerable in the face of despair, it is during these darkest hours that people make the greatest leaps in their lives and become the greatest versions of themselves. Our highest versions of ourselves are bred from love and trust. Hold to your gratitude and you are well on your way to success.

Success is not how much you have, but how far you traveled. You might have a million dollars but if you started with 10 million you might not feel that successful. But if you started on the streets and created a life of love, gratitude and respect for the world around, with a roof over your head, food on the table and you end the day with a smile. Then you are one of the most successful people in the world and you are the true 1%.

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Compassion is a Tool to Rule your Heart

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There is a great power in compassion, one that shines a light on the darkest moments and most abrasive relationships. I often found myself in situations where I was overwhelmed by my interactions with people that left me feeling emotionally drained. It took all I had to endure these people and their moods and attitudes. I soon realized that what was draining me was not the person themselves but my reaction to them. I was resisting who they were and who they were choosing to be.

We are typically egocentric beings that look at the world from one perspective. This is because it is typically easier to observe the world from your own perspective than every single person you meet. That means when you are communicating with someone you typically assume that they are looking at the world from your perspective, that is unless their experience is beyond the limits of what your mind can accept, such as if they are too happy for you or too sad, then their emotional experience is separated from your own and typically rejected. Nonetheless, our experience of putting ourselves in another person’s shoes is what has enabled our civilization and global community to grow. For example have you ever noticed yourself crying in a film when something bad happens or get excited when another triumph’s, this is because of our natural empathy.

We are naturally empathetic creatures and because of that we personally experience other people’s hardships. We take on their pain and their joys. This is one of our greatest characteristics as humans but it can also work to our disadvantage, if we let it run our lives unchecked, as it can leave us disempowered and disabled. Therefore as we take on others emotions in our everyday lives we can find ourselves resisting and resenting them for the emotional hole that we have joined them in. For instance have you noticed when your partner comes home from work in a bad mood while you are in a good mood, and soon enough you find yourself in an equally bad mood with them without having even spoken to them? This is because we have resisted them because we have empathized with them – a natural part of being human.

You don’t need to resent yourself for resisting them, it just means that you are being an empathetic being. However you have identified with their story as your own, from your perspective rather than acknowledging that they have been on their own journey that have led you both to the current place you are both in. Therefore there are ways to be empathetic that don’t leave you emotionally drained and that is through the power of compassion. Compassion is a powerful way to still keep love for someone without taking on their pain. When we acknowledge the journey someone else has been on we allow ourselves to disidentify from their pain and instead gain a more objective look at their story. We allow ourselves to move out of the narrow view of the present moment and instead broaden our perspectives of their journey and our own to gain an unaffected understanding.

“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” – Aesop (Ancient Greek. 620 BC-560 BC)

When we realize that we don’t have to take on another’s story we are free to acknowledge another truth – People in bad moods are probably having bad days. These bad days may be ongoing for months or years. Think about it, have you ever met a person that sits in the corner with their happiness and doesn’t care to share it with anybody? No. Happiness has to be shared and we all hold a natural inclination to pass it on to every person we meet, otherwise it loses all its value. So when you see a person that you know who leaves you emotionally lower, think about THEIR journey. Ask yourself the question, “what has happened that have left them unhappy?” When we can take a step back from our own perspective and acknowledge someone else’s we are given the amazing power of compassion. We can share with them our heart in a way that doesn’t leave us emotionally debilitated and instead we are able to take a step forward to give to them and help out. When we realize that their story is not our journey our own happiness is highlighted, and by sharing that joy in our actions to help them we are able to further inspire both them and ourselves.

Remember this: It is as important to be as compassionate for others as it is for ourselves. We exist beyond this moment, so remember your story and the journey you have travelled and give yourself a break. Smile at yourself from your heart and really feel the feeling in your heart of compassion, of giving yourself a break and not taking yourself so seriously.

So when you next are in a situation in which the person you are with leaves you emotionally drained because their attitude is poor, think about the journey they have been on, realize it is not your own story and smile at them from your heart. It is important to truly wish them the best possible outcome in their troubles and that they find themselves smiling soon. This mediation may inspire you to step forward and help them or it may ask you to step away, but either way it will help you be the best possible version of yourself for them and yourself. Compassion helps remove stress from your heart, opening yourself to the radiant possibilities of your health and your life. Your compassion enables you to cultivate greater connections with others as well as yourself. It highlights to yourself the good fortune that your own life holds and inspires you to be the best version of yourself and for all.