Tag Archives: Fear

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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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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Understanding the Truth of your Roller-Coaster Life

July 9, 2012 The Extropist Leave a comment

“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

June 25, 2012 The Extropist 2 Comments

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%.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_urxI9L5Ak&w=560&h=315]

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To Succeed we Need to Consider the Community of our Future Selves

April 30, 2012 The Extropist Leave a comment

Life often is about perspective. It is about reframing the shot to bring into focus the things that are really important. We often create the idea of the fairy tale life. We see the way we want things to work out and we don’t want any real hardship as we travel down that road. But what would we really learn if it was all that easy. How would you really progress if life were a series of simple steps that didn’t push you to really know yourself? You would just float through life on a euphoric cloud only connecting ever so lightly with your surroundings and you would never any of it or yourself as real.

We have hardships to create strength. To create growth. To create ever greater versions of ourselves. To learn a difficult math problem is in fact not easy, but with the effort that we put in not only do we learn the solution to the math problem we also learn that we can answer other math problems. Often we need to go and ask people for help to do so, but there is nothing wrong with that as our lives and society is built on communities of people coming together and working on single ideas of ideology, morality, politics, economics and many other more to create great solutions to tough questions.

Often we want to be the knight in shining armour that rides in, solves problems themselves, saves the princess and lives happily ever after however we must not only realize that we are communal, we must remember to strive for community. Most of us are taught to reach solely for the prize as a lone rider but what about if a knight went into the dragon’s lair, this difficult life problem, with a group of knight’s? Not in an effort to attain all the spoils for himself but to share the spoils equally. Rather than chasing the fantasy they instead work together to reach a shared goal. All men would be able to equally share in the spoils and all live well off. This idea is, in part, supported by John Nash’s Game Theory which asks that rather than trying to reach the unrealistic and self focused goal by ourselves we may find a greater and achievable reward with a more cooperative goal.

Whilst this concept takes into consideration often working with other people or cooperative agents, this cooperative goal can also happen closer to home so to speak. That is, cooperation with your present self and your future selves to be exact. Quantum physics has told us that reality and time is an infinite and infinitesimal sequence of moments of now and it is our consciousness that stitches them together to form the flow of experience. Every moment feeds off the next but that is not to say that it is the same moment. It is in fact, in essence, a completely new moment. Your future self therefore is a completely different self to the current self and selves that are reading this. If that is confusing and difficult to digest, when we look at it from the larger perspective and think back to fifteen years ago, it is hard to believe that we were the same person we are today reading this. That is because we are not. Our bodies and minds have completely refreshed and reformed. And so when we think of our future selves in shorter time whilst harder to notice the changes we can know that the present moment we are operating is a different moment from the former and the future.

By working with your future selves for the ultimate goal, you will be able to look at the fact that while you were unable to receive the current prize, you may be able to see that you have worked in collaboration with your future self in order to create a greater future for all of yourselves, both future and present. This may come as an example where you have worked on something but it doesn’t pay off the way that you wanted it. However when you change your perspective, you can see that you have gained a lot of experience, connections and references for your future self in order that they will succeed. You can see that you have sacrificed your past self in order that others will thrive. Sacrifice and surrender is considered one of the greatest, and noblest, gifts a person can give to anyone and to anything.

When you act in collaboration with your future selves you gain a much larger and grander perspective and a much greater vision of what you are doing. You’re your actions have a greater perspective, you then have a greater purpose. You have a meaning and a reason for doing what you are doing. You allow yourself to be more forgiving of actions that didn’t pan out as originally intended for you see that they are only a small, and often necessary bump in the road. You therefore can find a greater appreciation for those little things that do and don’t work out for you, as you and your team of selves are now a step closer towards the greater goal that you are working towards. For with a team you can trust, you know that you will ultimately achieve the dream that all your selves are trying to attain. So please don’t be disheartened by things that don’t happen exactly the way you planned but instead see the bigger picture and be supportive of your greater selves. And remember Aesop’s motto “United we stand, divided we fall” so work in collaboration with your future selves and you will surely be able to reach any goal. GO TEAM!!!

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How to get off the train of thoughts we don’t want

April 25, 2012 The Extropist 4 Comments

If we are hounded by a thought or emotional reaction that we don’t want, then we must learn to free our minds from the thoughts that don’t serve us. To gain this freedom we must consider the range of cognitive patterns are playing out in our lives and gain an understanding on how to work with these naturally occurring phenomenon. Everyone has thoughts, and everyone has thoughts they don’t want so it’s about learning how to have these thoughts and still be the version of ourselves.

Unfortunately to free ourselves selves from unwanted thoughts it’s not as simple as saying “No! I don’t want to think about this anymore” because very soon these banished thoughts soon reappear above our mental horizons. There is a saying supposedly made famous by the psychologist Carl Jung that said “what we resist persists, and what we look at goes away”.

Quick test: Read this and then close your eyes – Do not think about pink elephants for a period of 30 seconds!

Most people will surely think of a pink elephant, and so we can see how difficult it would be to not think of things that are emotionally charged. Therefore we have to make sure to be able to look at things and be able to remove the emotional charge from them. Sort of releasing the air out of the pink elephant balloon.

Let us now highlight two main cognitive culprits that appear to always be present in enabling emotional distress and then look at ways of diffusing them in order to regain control of our minds and hearts. Firstly, letting your mind run away with you. Often we may not have enough control over the mind to keep it focused on the things that serve us. Our minds have a natural negativity bias that fills an idle space with the worst-case scenarios in order to keep us vigilant of any dangers. This is great if we are living in constant danger and need to live day by day in a jungle filled with predators. We are living, however in an urban society filled with other social individuals trying to grow beyond survival and therefore we need to instead focus our physiological and mental resources on improving personal functionality. This is the way of the Extropist for the fact that we are utilizing the best use of our resources for our inevitable growth by negating the entropic leak. We need to instead inject new energy into our personal system to elevate us to the next level of personal progress.

The first practice to stop this energy leak is to gain control of the mind and where its thoughts are going. This can be done through the practice of mindful meditation. Start with 15 minutes a day. Sit in any comfortable position that won’t induce sleep. Follow and focus on only your breath. If thoughts come in allow them to be there and then let them move on past you like a train rushing past. Try not to jump onto the thought train. If you do notice that you are on the train – That’s fine. Simply jump off and come back to your focus on your breath.

The second element I would mention is that you are not your thoughts. Your mind is a testing ground for seeds of potential. Each thought you have is a hologram of a potential reality. Holographic servers are able to run multiple programs simultaneously thereby allowing us to test out many realities simultaneously and play these possibilities out. However, these thoughts of your simulated realities are not real. You do not need to identify with these thoughts as real. They are holograms. Illusions. Learn to see your thoughts as that. Instead let them rush on past you. If you begin to see them sneak in name them, either in your mind or out aloud. ANGER…. ANXIOUS. By naming them you are dissociating yourself from them. You are putting them outside of yourself. It is important to remember to keep these thoughts outside of yourself and not identify with them. When you talk about them try not to say, “I am angry”, instead say “I am feeling angry”. This gives you more space between you and the thought to then be free of it by gaining control of your mind and breathing through it. Therefore you are not your anger, you are only running your anger program at that moment you feel anger. Anger is the thought program on the screen but there are many other programs that you can choose to run instead. Patience. Compassion. Forgiveness. Choose the thought that best serves you and your growth.

Source: urli.nl via Josh on Pinterest

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Remember gratitude. It is always a powerful way to neutralize our negative feelings and enable positive programs because often we are upset because of the distance between what we want and where we actually are. However when we practice gratitude we increase the value of who we actually are and realize that there is no real distance between these places. We can realize that we are perfect in the place that we are now and what we have created up to this moment. There is so much more for us to create in our lives which only can provide a true excitement rather than a despair. So find your gratitude for this moment and the next and you will find an easing of any burning despair.

Take control of your mind by letting your thoughts and feelings move through you rather than holding onto them. When you take these steps you will create a space to be free of what you don’t want and instead you will be totally absorbed in what you do want. People really shine not when they are basking in the glow of some happy moment but when they can still smile when they are in the depths of their darkest hours. It is when you can choose to hold a positive program, hold your focus and flow through the moments, rather than resist them, that you best create the powerful processes that serve you through the darkest and brightest times of your life.

Source: youtube.com via Josh on Pinterest

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We can See that it is when he is off the train of thoughts he is able to reach his goal!

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Failures are openings to our Greatest Creations

April 16, 2012 The Extropist 2 Comments

Many times throughout our lives we try to create an opportunity, an idea, a dream but end up without a ‘positive’ result. We look at the outcome as a failure either on our own part or that of the external world. But, what if this was not a failure but an opening? What if you actually believed whole heartedly that everything you experienced was your own creation and that embedded in the outcomes that you think are “bad” are actually such greater gems of wisdom that you could have only gained by not having a dream realized.

In this world we are taught to win and have more, have the most. However, do you really think your highest purpose, the meaning of your life, is to accumulate physical wealth and leisure or do you think that there is something far greater in store for you that you are unconsciously working toward. Do you think you would have greater life satisfaction with truly loving and knowing your life purpose or being able to afford a trip to Hawaii? I’m not saying that this definitely exists in your experience, but I am saying that if you spend the time to look at your life mishaps you may find understandings that are far more valuable than the trip itself.

I like to think about it like this, if a toddler was given everything they asked for would they gain all the lessons they needed in life? Or do you think the fact that they learnt about things like delayed gratification, about being thankful for what they have, that then they will have a far more balanced look on life.

If you have become discouraged, that is fine, but the very fact that you have become discouraged means that you didn’t truly believe. You may be able to visualize Hawaii but that doesn’t mean that you have a knowing that you are going there. We most powerfully create our lives when we have a true belief that we are not attached to the outcome. When we know something is going to happen that we don’t even question what the outcome will be.

The same way a pen falls to the ground we know that we can pick it up. We don’t even question that the pen can’t be picked up. And even if we had a sore back, something that limited our progress and couldn’t quite reach it we still trust completely in ourselves that the pen will be picked up. We understand that despite our limitation of not being able to pick it up now that once moving through the limitations we are experiencing we will again be able to complete the task we began earlier. Remember we have the soreness in our back to protect us from further injuring ourselves. Our limitations are often our greatest teachers. Love the lessons and you will gain the greatest knowing.

Hold more than a belief, hold a knowing within yourself and trust in your dreams, as if they are as possible as picking up a fallen pen. Look for the truth in the ‘limitations’ that we create that temporarily stop the reaching of our dreams because with the greater understanding of ourselves comes the greatest experience of life and the richest expression of our dreams.

So please KNOW this despite the long journey ahead: Dreams Come True! They really do!!!

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/40000072 w=400&h=225]

Caine’s Arcade from Nirvan Mullick on Vimeo.

This impressive 9 year old boy followed his dream fearlessly with a true knowing, and undoubtedly with life’s help, he made his dreams come true!

ELEVATE

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

February 21, 2012 The Extropist Leave a comment

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?!

EXPLORE

The Ego trips

December 9, 2011 The Extropist 1 Comment

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.

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