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The Will to Work is The Will to Live

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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.

Risks lead to good things

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.

Love the advenure

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Failures are openings to our Greatest Creations

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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!

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Transform your cycle of chaos and become an Extropist

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

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

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

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

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

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The Science of Gratitude and the Creation of Dreams

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Whale Wisdom: “Give Thanks!”

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

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

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

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

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Spawning creativity. Borrowing genius

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

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

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

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

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

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The Ego trips

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

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

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

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

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Calculating the Love Connection

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Isn’t it wonderful that there is someone in life to think sweet thoughts about, whether or not you are in a relationship with them. I was at my best-friend’s wedding, and in his speech I gained an amazing insight into what the feeling of love really is. He helped me understand that this person you are focussed on is a person that inspires you to want to be the best person that you see yourself becoming. It is that feeling of inspiration, of wanting to be the best that you can be for this person and the world that we call “In-Love”. But it is equally important for you to realize that it is not the person themselves, it is the connection between the two of you. You are the person that feels the love “IN” you. Love is not given to you, it is conjured within, and is up to you to accept and acknowledge that experience of it within. You recognize love from your connection with another person. This is because whatever you put out you always get back.

The Love Equation
Newton’s third law of motion and force states “Every action always has an opposite and equal reaction”. Love is an e-motion or a force that motivates us. This means that the only way you can experience love is by giving love. It is reflected back to you. Therefore the more love you give, the more it will reflect back.

The Love Mirror
The amount reflected back to you depends on the reflective surface onto which you are shining. The person that you are sending your love to needs to be able to accept the love within themselves in order to be able to reflect it back. You will only be able to receive the amount of love reflected back to you as the person is able to absorb. It is the same as saying “you can only love another as much as you love yourself”. For example, let us say that you are providing a stadium light worth of love but the person only has a mirror the size of you palm. You wont actually receive that much back. Furthermore their mirror might actually be directed at someone else so that even more will be lost. Therefore it is important to make sure you are always giving to yourself as much as you are giving to your partner.

Give without Expectation
Here is one trick to ensuring you will get love back though. Give without expectation. If you give love without expectation of receiving back, you will always walk away with a smile in your heart because you have not limited yourself to the single connection but given for the sake of the whole universe, of something much bigger than the both of you. When you give for something bigger than yourself you will always and truly receive that which is equal to that which you have given” You can use this love equation for anything, for a connection with a person, for a connection with a thing, for a connection with an action, for a connection with a thought, for a connection with anything and everything. Lets say you love playing guitar. By giving to the action of playing you are getting a much richer love for yourself and the music than if you merely listened to it on the radio. You will find new understandings about where the music can go and where it can take you. This is all because of the millions of different variables that exist between the player and the music: The tone, the pitch, the timbre, the rhythm, your emotion, your content. So many different ways that these variables can come together that you will be able to create such a rich and fulfilling experience. Now think about this connection and all the variables that exist between two people and you can times the richness of connection by infinity. Which is why I might add it is so difficult to define “Love”, because there are literally infinite ways for it to be experienced and it is the same for wisdom.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3gMgK7h-BA&w=420&h=315]

The Love Connection
When we think of romantic love between partners, we can see how the love connection is developed from your experiences and interactions, your support and intimacy, your absorption and your teachings, from anything and everything that bounces between you two between each of you individually and the outside world and between both of you together and the outside world around you. All these things add up and build the love connection. I like to think of it like an internet connection. The more experiences you share, the more intimately you get to learn about yourself, your partner, what they want and what you want. And as we know more information you have access to, the more bandwidth you have built into that connection. The greater the connection the richer the experience and the more mature the love that you will feel.

Equating your Love Connection
Upon deciding on our partner, we take into considerations the things that have worked for us in the past that we have built and we ask for those things to be equally present. We also acknowledge those things that haven’t worked for us and it is when we have shone the light on these things that we can then better help understand what we need to build a connection this next time to better serve us in creating a richer love connection. Sometimes we aren’t always aware of what does and doesn’t serve us and other times we believe we want things built from a reactive state. The only place you create your life from is your present not your past. Therefore build your love connection from this moment. (For more on this see Shifting paths – Shifting lives). When you have found this someone that your unconscious has calculated as matching the requirements that you need to satisfy the building of the love connection you are looking for, you will begin to feel stirrings of wanting to connect with this person. This feeling is so exhilarating and profound that we naturally feel it is the person that is causing such feelings. Please remember, that they are merely the conduit, the mediator the mirror. Treat it kindly and shine the light of love on it and you will feel the experience of love. Build the connection by learning about each other and you will have ever-richer experiences of love.

The Love Connector
The best way to create and connect to an experience of finding the person that can satisfy the personality variables you are looking for is through a love poem. Write a love poem about the perfect partner. Imagine this perfect partner is on their way over to your house and you want to give it to them as a sign of love and gratitude. Do not have any one person in mind but simply write about how grateful you are for them. Write about the way they make you feel. Write about what things you adore about them. Write about the things you do, say and share with each other. Write about how you communicate and how you support each other. Write it so that you feel it as the Truth within you. When you have finished writing you will be one step closer to your partner. Whether it is a person you have your heart set on or another unknown in the Universe that you know you will attract, because you will be clear in what you want. Your subconscious will have revealed to you what is meaningful and what makes up your current love connection. When you are clear on what you want, you won’t fall into pitfalls of connecting with people that don’t make up the values you are looking for and so you will save yourself time and heartache. When you finally connect with your partner it doesn’t hurt to rewrite the poem of what new love connections you are building at the moment so that you are clear within yourself as to how you want it to grow. The fun part here is that you actually get to give it to the person that you love!

So remember your love exists within you. You build a love connection between you but the love always exists within. The trick is to build a big enough connection that the sharing is quick, easy and inspiring. Give and be open to receive. This goes for anything you do. Walk into any situation by giving without expectation to receive and you will always walk out with a mile on your face. Live from a force of love and you can create anything. Just write exactly what you want and why as if it’s on its way to your door and you will open up to your dream life.

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How to Make a Mistake

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Often we feel overwhelmed by a situation. We have done everything right but still our plans go awry. We look around us and blame it on the world. This person screwed me; the conditions were not right; etc. And saying this is fine. Sometimes it might be smarter to drop something and forget about it. But sometimes it may be worth stopping for a moment and looking at the situation, and asking yourself whether you can take responsibility for what happened?

Taking responsibility reveals the lesson

It is only when we take responsibility for something do we provide ourselves the opportunity to change the outcome. If you refuse to look at the outcome and say it was someone else’s fault you will never be able to properly see what went wrong and understand how to solve the problem and learn the lesson. It has been said that “What we resist persists, and what we look at goes away”. So maybe you can see that as you open yourself to something rather resisting it, the problem might fall away when you realize that maybe it wasn’t a problem. Maybe what happened was exactly what needed to occur in order for you to move forward and grow into the person that you dreamed of becoming. We live in a society where we have been taught that to make a mistake is “bad”. We spend our whole lives trying to be right but here is something we all need to learn, being right all the time is actually “bad” and learning how to make a mistake in a constructive way is actually so right you wouldn’t believe.

Mistakes you want to make

It has been shown that taking yourself to the limit where you make mistakes is the greatest way to learn, if you deal with the lesson appropriately. Instead of reacting, slow down. Don’t take the mistake as a failure, as a personal attack on your sense of self-worth, but realize that this is one step closer to reaching your goal. This mistake is not an error but instead an opportunity to learn. The more our minds and bodies create impulses that experience and overcome difficulties, the better we will be able to handle these problems in the future. The better we handle problems, the faster we can deal with them to the point where they are no longer problems but a momentary challenge, just like the way a baby learnt to walk. At first even crawling was a serious problem but eventually the baby learnt how to crawl, and then how to steps. Walking suddenly became only a challenge and ultimately it was so automatic that not only did the baby not have to even think about walking, but as the child grew up it could do things like running and surfing as easily as breathing. Without these mistakes the baby would have never made it past the first step.

Outside of now

So ask yourself could this problem be a part of your lesson in order to reach your goals. Try looking at the situation from a higher perspective, one that is outside of only the present moment. Instead think about what this experience means to you in a year’s time or five years time. Now look back and look at how relevant this problem in the scheme of your life that has been. By looking at the problem at hand as a lesson to learn rather than a mistake, you create your space as the actor not the reactor of your life.

Acting or reacting

When you react, you are reacting from an emotional space. There is a difference between feelings and emotions. You actively generate your feelings. Feelings guide your actions powerfully and are the best space to make decisions from as they come from a place of control and clarity. Feelings can take form when you practice gratitude. Give thanks for what you have and where you are in your life and give thanks for your dream and what you are trying to create. Even try and appreciate yourself. Name five things you are thankful for about yourself. (Learn more about gratitude in “Gratitude gets you Zen Continue reading How to Make a Mistake →

ELEVATE

Success lies beyond what you can see

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If you want to truly attract money. Dont focus on the how. Trying to attract money is a ‘HOW’. Instead focus on your joy. Focussing on the money is telling the universe how you want to reach your passion. We look for money because that brings us control. Control over our lives, over problems, over the external world. But control is not happiness and neither is money. Even with the control from money, you will still attract problems into your life.

People often say when things are looking up, “something outside of my control comes in and knocks it all down again”. That ‘outside of your control’ is actually the very thing that is in your control. You are inviting that into your life because that is your belief structure: Every time you set something up it will be taken from you. Because that is your chaos, to see for yourself whether you believe in yourself and your dreams. Because that is your lesson, to believe in your dream beyond what you can see.

Try finding humility in the good in your life and don’t resist or resent the changes that inevitably come. You will find your peace, you will find your stability and you will find your growth. I always find it interesting that there for some people when things go wrong suddenly there’s always a silver lining and for other people when things go right there’s always a storm cloud around the corner. I don’t believe these people are cursed but instead they curse themselves. Follow your joy, trust the universe and have the faith to keep striving when storm clouds gather.

“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.” Albert Schweitzer (1875 – 1965) Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

When you follow your passion, when you follow your joy, you will find that life is effortless and you will not need to try to protect yourself as much because you can trust that life and the universe is actually a friendly place. So please know this, the universe does not need to be told “How”. It can see much further in the future than you. So let go of your need for control and money, instead focus on your passion and have faith in yourself and trust that the Universe will know how to get you there.