Tag Archives: Meditation

21

Being Better

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Develop habits that make you better!! Loose those that make you worse.

There are certain habits a person can participate in, which will make them better in all aspects of their lives. Certain practices, entertained thoroughly, are potent to the value of life because they are not only positive for the body, mind, and spirit, but they also lead to other behaviors that improve one’s life. In this short writing, I will speak of three such habits, taken seriously by a person, which will lead one to be healthier, happier, and wiser for the practice of the thing and for the other benefits each brings into your life.

As you consider adding these things to your life, deep contemplation of one fact should rise to the forefront of the mind. How will being better help me? Well, my friend, in so many ways. It is impossible to rise to your highest level of achievement unless a person is willing to be the best version of themselves in all areas of life. These simple habits are choices a person must make each day, and the practice of the three will lead to overall greater depth and enjoyment of life and the quality of experiencing it.

Read Like Your Life Depends On It

In all of my life, there has never been another force as powerful as reading has been. It has opened up the world to me and a plethora of new ideas with it.  Each original thought led to other recent reviews; each expanded my mind. Whether I liked it or not. Once an account is opened, it can’t go back to its shape before. There is simply no way so that the expansion will also cause other changes.

We can read the opportunity to build the curriculum for our education. Not a plan dictated by institutions or governments for their ends. But the thoughts we are interested in entertaining. We can learn about money, emotions, social skills, better health, relationships, or the ideas of great thinkers from the past. Each choice is usually more relevant and compelling than all of your years at school because education is your choice.  Becoming your director of knowledge provides you with the freedom to become whatever you want to grow in life, and that freedom is priceless. Much more effective than any organized degree, and it is action and results from that matter in this world. Nobody can stop you but you.

Learn the power of Meditation

There are many negative thoughts regarding Meditation, but I wager most are created out of fear and ignorance.  Meditation is the simple practice of quieting the mind and allowing your thoughts and emotions to be under your control rather than the other way around.  Our brains are our most excellent tool, but without any management system, this thing we should be controlling is controlling us.  All thought comes with an emotion attached, and if you don’t like the feeling you are feeling, and it doesn’t serve you, then choose a different idea to focus on.

Meditation will allow you to increase your focus on positive things for your life. It is proven that the tenor of your thoughts and actions dictate the energy of your life. Thinking and acting in a selfish, negative way will lead to the experience of those things in your reality. The practice of kindness, giving, honesty, and acceptance will create a life containing those things.  Meditation will bring about a general feeling of well-being and confidence because when you realize you are in control of your thoughts, you can do almost anything better.  Meditation is a practice the world should learn, and there would be far fewer problems.  I appreciate the moments.

Physical Fitness is a Must

It doesn’t matter your exercise of choice as long as you practice it regularly. It could be running, lifting weights, yoga, biking, martial arts, or any other kind of fitness there is.  It will increase your muscle tone, help you lose fat, and move you toward a healthier weight.  It will also promote heart health, lead to fewer overall health concerns, and allow you to live longer and better in all your life, but fitness also includes another choice: diet.

When a person is engaged in a routine fitness program, it is much easier for that person to develop a diet of healthy eating. In combination, these two factors provide a person with the ability to become the fittest person they can be.  It is not just what a person eats but the portion of that food, which will lead to their overall health in weight and performance.  Making fitness a priority in your life will give you the keys to becoming the best version of yourself.  Take the time to find an exercise you love doing that resonates with you deeply, soulfully.

Try to make these three things regular habits in your life, and you will be on your way to developing as a better person in body, mind, and spirit. Life is a short ride, and your choices in these areas will make you the best version of yourself if you choose to pursue that.  Like all things in life, they involve personal preference.

“When you are at that intersection in the road, and you’ve got two paths to go down, because of the impact of certain people in your life, you’re able to choose the right path.” —Jason Witten

“The dreaming has to be backed up by the doing.” —Carrie Wilkerson

“The time is now. Stop hitting the snooze button on your life.” —Mel Robbins

“Leap off the fence of indecision. Get out of the ‘Want to Lane’ and put yourself into the ‘Got to Lane.'” —Gloria Mayfield Banks

 

21

Inner Calm

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In any 24 hours, if you venture out into the world, there will be challenges you will face. The battleground for most of these things is going to be in our heads. I often face challenges to maintain a positive attitude or not to be overwhelmed by a poor perspective of things. Anger is an emotion designed as a warning for us. To make sure we know when something isn’t right, or more precisely, that you are afraid. Afraid that your needs aren’t going to be met by a loss of one form or another. Most often, anger is a waste of time. Moving beyond unhealthy emotions of anger, judgment, greed, or cruelty smoothly, quickly, and healthily can make your life a much more pleasant experience. One of the best things we can do is to create a positive space in our mind; it is a skill that anyone can master if they want to.

Be a Reader, Not a Reactor to Thoughts

Thoughts are occurring in our minds at a rapid pace all day long. You have a choice of which ones you listen to and which ones you let pass you by. It is good practice to start to pay attention to the thoughts you allow to affect you positively and negatively. As humans, we are capable of keeping only one thing in our focus at a time. If you choose to focus on a negative, that will trigger negative emotional responses physically in your body. Once you start to drop down a negative chute of thought, it will focus on itself.

Read the negative thought and notice it, and then let it go and choose a more positive view to focus on. Once accomplished, your body will react, and you will move down a more positive chute. Thoughts build on each other, and a focus develops. Read your thoughts and know where they are taking you. The alternative is to let your dreams run wild and spend your time merely reacting at the mercy of whatever your mind creates. That is how many people live their lives. It leads to wild swings or emotions and unpredictable behavior. Focus on your thoughts and dismiss those that aren’t an accurate representation of who you are and who you want to be. Let them slide by you like flies in the darkness.

Real Focus Develops

One of the best methods to develop a focus on positive thoughts is meditation. Most people picture incense, candles, and chanting when they think of meditating, but that is just a stereotype. Many people practice meditation without knowing it. Whenever you calm your mind and notice your thoughts, you are contemplating. It can be through intense concentration on a task or a conscious effort to notice your breathing. There is a calmness that will take over your mind and body if you stop the mind from running wild and focus on something other than your thought. Thoughts then come to you but are very noticeable as something outside of you.

The peaceful calm that will move over you when you seek calmness will allow you to look deep inside yourself and get to know your true self. Some say that is where your real power exists. Once the thoughts are quiet, a real focus can develop on what you want in your life and what you don’t. Clear goals can materialize, and actual plans for achieving them come into your reality. Focus on the calmness of mediation and see what you can accomplish.

Calmness is a power

There is an ability to bring your inner strength to bear against any challenge you will face the ability to calm your mind at will allows those without this asset to can’t. Inside us all, there is a strength hidden most of the time but can be channeled and used to enable you to thrive and survive when it seems doubtful. Much of our suffering occurs because we desire things to come to us a certain way. Without it, we are in trouble.

But there is the self-confidence that we develop, left to our own devices as children we have it, but time, experience, and the will of others push it down deep. Challenges come in life as a chance to bring them out. Sometimes we fail, are overwhelmed, and never get there. But ………sometimes we do not fail, and we remember the fact that we are strong enough t0 handle what life is throwing our way. Whatever that is, addiction, poverty, or loss. Inside of us is the strength to take it. Finding that strength is helped by developing a calmness about you.

Focus on methods to see the tone and tenor of your thoughts. Look for the ones that make your life a better experience and leave the negative behind. Learning to focus your mind and see what it is doing can allow you to find success and overcome any challenge you face.

“Calm mind brings inner strength and self-confidence, so that’s very important for good health.” -Dalai Lama

“Getting stress out of your life takes more than prayer alone. You must take action to make changes and stop doing whatever is causing the stress. You can learn to calm down in the way you handle things.”-Joyce Meyer

“You don’t have to control your thoughts. You have to stop letting them control you.”-Dan Millman

 

21

Positive Vibes

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How might you change your life and the lives of others by being more positive?

Give yourself a little positive boost today.  These things will help us to develop ourselves as productive beings. There are certain areas of life we need to cultivate and others we need to leave behind us.  As you look at the activities and conversations you have throughout your day, take a little time to evaluate how these things I am going to talk about work into your life.  If they are not something you are currently developing, consider taking some time to build these things in your relationships, inside yourself, and life in general.

Generosity is something you can practice every day. You can give things to others, but giving yourself, your time, and caring is much more valuable. Giving will provide you with a path to find growth and learning. Being generous is also the path to receiving as well. Look at your life and see where you can be more generous with your time and give others the attention they need.  Give time, give notice, give love to all areas of your life. The person who will be receiving it is you.

Discipline is another trait you can work on building into your daily life. Be in control of what you say and how you treat other people. All people are capable of causing harm to others with very little thought. Try not to be one of these.  Your growth as a positive person should not, in any way, cause damage to others.  Develop a sense of consistent learning and appropriate behavior as life gives you the lessons you need to become better than you were yesterday. Every day is an opportunity to stick to the good and let go of the negative, and to be able to do this consistently takes discipline in life, thought, and action. Work to develop this in your everyday life. My definition of discipline is doing what needs to happen to the best of your ability every time it needs to happen.  Practice this in all areas of your life.

Patience is a different sort of learning experience. It’s human nature to want it all and want it now, but that experience may overwhelm you and not allow for an appreciation of any part of an experience. Let all things evolve at their speed and in their own time.  By enabling each item to grow and develop as it needs, we allow an opportunity to appreciate that thing and a chance to grow from experiencing it.  Growth is the opposite of forcing things, allow the moments to be the moments they are, enjoy the process. Let things develop as they should. Pushing your agenda in life always leaves you empty-handed.  Set a goal, ask for what you want, then let it grow as it should.

Acceptance of ourselves, others, and life’s situations is another key area we can develop. We all must give away our thoughts of perfectionism, which is always a lie someone else has told you. Instead, focus on the truth of who you are and the quality that exists in every moment. What is perfection but a created thought of the desired outcome?  In other words, how we perceive a situation should play out. But who is to say what is best for us? What is the learning we need? Let go of the need for perfection and embrace the quality that naturally exists in every moment. There is a beauty in the imperfection and power there too.  Allow all things to be perfectly imperfect. In this imperfection, we can find ourselves and appreciate the matrix that is life.

Use your mind rather than letting your brain use you. Or worse yet, letting someone else do your thinking for you.  Control is gained by learning to relax and allowing your thoughts to flow. You are not identifying with any of them in particular but noticing each as they pass you by on their way. To think this way is meditation, and with practice, it can calm you physically and improve your mental capacity.

Most importantly, control of your mind will allow you to exist in this moment, which is the only thing you have.  Thoughts of the past and future are all fantasy, created in our minds. The present moment is the only one we can live in and learn to embrace and enjoy it. Connect with the things in your life right now.

Cultivate your most powerful asset, your thoughts. This growth occurs just like tending a garden. The activities you participate in, the ideas you think, and the actions you willingly participate in will allow for the appearance of the backyard of your mind. Most people never realize how they are creating their existence and experience, primarily based on the tenor of their thoughts. Keep your mind open to experiencing new paths of positive experience. All of our feelings will result in an emotional response, and those responses will be charged with positive or negative energy.  Positive energy will pick you up, and the negative will take you in the other direction.

These are all things you can add to your life today if you need a little positive boost.  Who wouldn’t want that?

“Create the highest, grandest vision possible for your life because you become what you believe.”

“When you can’t find the sunshine, be the sunshine.”

“So, what if, instead of thinking about solving your whole life, you think about adding new good things. One at a time. Just let your pile of good things grow.”

“A great attitude becomes a great day, which becomes a great month, which becomes a great year, which becomes a great life.”

 

21

Favorite Things

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I have learned a few things throughout my life to assist me in navigating the sometimes stormy waters I have encountered. They aren’t tricky in concept and have proven useful when the challenges of existence come my way.  As we all know, there are always two-sided to life. It will bring you decisive, secure, happy moments, but along with each of those will come challenges that will bring you growth. These things we feel we could do without, but these things have a purpose. They allow us to grow beyond where we are right now in this moment.  “What is this trying to teach me?” 

I am sure we can all do without the suffering moments, loss, and sadness in life. The bitter provides value to the sweet.  You can try to prepare yourself to handle the tough times and persevere in life and not have the unexpected challenges of life bury you alive when they hit. You lose a job, a relationship ends, someone passes away, or even a natural disaster hits.  You will either grow from these things or be beaten by them. Don’t be beaten. Use these little weapons to help you win.

Foul Weather Gear

Foul weather gear is a term I picked up from some friends of mine many years ago. They raced a boat on the ocean for fun and took me out for a sail quite often. The experience was excellent, and I enjoyed the gentle waves on the sea on a bright, warm summer day.  It was relaxing and utterly enjoyable. Life is often like this. But……Sometimes though, the weather will turn, and it isn’t so lovely, and it rains hard, and the winds are no longer favorable but merciless, which can be quite dangerous. When the storm hits is when you break out your foul weather gear, and it will help you make it through the storm and enjoy the ride as much as possible. It is a measure we should all take in life. Life often seems like a sunny day with beautiful weather, but a storm can arise out of nowhere. It is always good to have foul weather gear at hand, just in case.

Some people are so attached to the sunny day and calm sail they will never see the joy and excitement that comes from the harsher weather heading your way — this chance to use your wits and develop your skill on the boat. You can grow as an individual and with the crew as well. There may be some danger, but life is full of uncertainty. It allows us to learn to deal with it.

Life Gives What We Need

In a perfect world, we would always find an immediate reward for good behavior and positive actions. And those who treat people poorly and make decisions that harm others would be immediately punished. But that is not how things work. If you look at the short game, life will never seem fair.  But when you look at the extended play, it appears that all things work out exactly as they should. Those who live their lives based on fear have little joy and happiness, and those who live in love are happy and enjoy life. Never expect life to give you everything you ever wanted on a silver platter, it won’t, and you will spend your time wallowing in self-pity if that is what you expect. But life will allow you the chance to grow and become the best person you can be in all areas.  Never worry about the fairness of life, worry about your ability to deal with what you face, and making positive decisions based on kindness, caring, understanding, acceptance, and love. This ability will allow you to see the long game of your life because that is all that matters.  Life gives us all an equal opportunity to become our best, so it is the ultimate level of fairness.

Practice Kindness

There are no situations where practicing kindness can hurt anything and always contributes to a better day for those you practice kindness. Sometimes we get wrapped up in our desires and feelings, and the fear of not getting what we want or feel we need can diminish our mood and make us less a lower version of ourselves. Negative thoughts make us move around in a bad mood, and we distribute negative energy to all folks we encounter that day.

Viewing the world from the scope of what we can do for others rather than what we can do for ourselves will benefit all involved, including the world in general.  Look at your expectations for the day, see what you seek for yourself, and then look for the simple things you can do to make someone else’s day a little brighter. Kindness is easy to practice because it feels good to be kind. Put other people first and treat the world with that attitude, and it will generally treat you that way too.

Build Your Body

Exercise is a choice, and participating in it regularly will bring you many benefits. It is suitable for the functioning of your body in heart, mind, and spirit daily, and that by itself is enough. Along with a sensible diet, it will help you maintain a healthier weight and feel better in overall health.  But there is also another benefit that many don’t contemplate.

When tragedy comes into your life, you will be mentally and physically able to handle things better.  Many people have their lives jump off the rails at the slightest bump of adversity.  Working out teaches you to reach deep inside yourself and know that there is a strength to do what you have to do, even if sometimes you don’t want to.  Without a consistent exercise regimen, I think that we tend to move to the soft side and become vulnerable. Whatever training and physical activity resonate with you, participate in it.  Lifting, jogging, biking, yoga, martial arts, or any other type of exercise will provide you strength inside and outside.

Find Moments of Quiet

It is in the moments of quiet that you can hear yourself. Take time to find the places in life where you can get your mind to stop making noise and listen to the natural inner guidance we all have. Experience provides us with many rules and expectations that teach us what society expects from us, but they don’t help our soul express itself in the way one needs. To follow this inner guidance, we need to quiet the mind and stop chasing the world’s expectations. Listen to the inner voice that exists in each of us.  The sound is your intuition, and it is much wiser than your thoughts will ever be.

Don’t ignore your intuition because of the thoughts you think about the fears and expectations of the world.  Find the quiet and ask simple questions and follow the answers you hear. It sounds simple, but it takes commitment because as soon as you get a response, your mind will kick back in with a million objections and doubts. What will people think? How can that work? Will we lose the respect of others?  Those we love will judge us harshly.  Nobody will understand. Soon the right answer seems like an impossible challenge.  It is much easier to maintain the status quo, but it isn’t very fulfilling. Life brings a growth experience and avoiding growth leads to atrophy and death.  Listen to your inner voice.

Meditation

Taking on meditation is a great way to calm your mind and stop the constant chatter. There are many misconceptions about the practice, it is not difficult, and it is not religious. It is a tool to work with your mind and the thoughts you have rather than be bowled over by it. It can also help you find a way to deal with your emotions more healthily.  Since we get very little guidance in our lives on how to do this, meditation has been a savior to me in making sense, accepting, and moving past the inevitable negative emotions which arise from life.

There are many different ways to meditate; to me, there is no wrong way. You will be able to find guided meditations easily. I use an app on my phone called Insight Timer, and there are many others.  They offer a chance to be conducted in a direction you need to work on, or you can use their timer with ambient sound and focus on your breathing.  Whatever method resonates with you and helps you live a healthier life is a good thing to do. Give it a try. You will only find positives.

These are a few little thoughts to make life a more enjoyable experience.  Keep your foul weather gear handy and ride out the storm. Understand life is a long game, it may seem unfair at the moment, but it all equals out in the end. As long as your alive, there is a chance for a comeback.  Kindness is always the right choice. If you are questioning whether or not understanding will work, practice compassion.  Find your moments of quiet, just for you, because you deserve it. We all need to contemplate the things which make us feel fulfilled, what steps to take next, and where our power lies. To that end, give practicing meditation a chance. It can allow you to tame the negative thoughts and produce a positive force of action in your life. Be physical, and take care of your body in some way. You only get one of them, and it will take you as far in life as you let it.

Keep these tools at your disposal, and they will help you overcome the hard times and answer the question: What is this trying to teach me?

 

21

Calm

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Calm Leads To Power

My goal is to establish a positive focus every morning by focusing on a positive word or phrase. There are enough negative influences in my world, and I believe that we can improve our emotions, words, and actions and make the world a better place one thought, feeling, word, and move at a time through a conscious direction of our thinking. It is easy to lose yourself and your focus in the whirl of activities and distractions we are bombarded in each moment: social media, video games, popular culture, and everything else we are exposed to. Let’s face it, and we have more technology in our phones than we had in the entire school of our youths.  Calmness is a feeling of relaxation and clear thinking, and we can get it at almost any time through mindful breathing and meditation. There is a power in the calm for you to direct your focus in the directions that will be beneficial to you and away from what other people might think you should spend some time and effort finding your calm today.

What does it mean to be Calm?

When you look at your inside world, where thoughts and emotions jumble together to create your consciousness, the ability to organize and regulate will allow you to function at a high level. You will be able to develop better relationships and be more productive if you can remain calm in the chaos of your thoughts.  To be calm is not to let your emotions dominate your behavior but to become the master of them and allow a transparent thought process to dictate your actions, not the irrational and erratic activities of emotions.  This calm is easy to explain but not so easy to master, so I implore you today to make being calm a part of your consciousness!

Storms Come For Growth

Life, as always, is a very willing teacher in the mastery of your calmness. To write or think about controlling your emotions in the abstract is all well and good. But what about when you are in the throws of emotions. Strong emotions come into our experience, and you can’t just ignore them; you have to deal with them in some form or fashion.  Life will present you with plenty of challenges to provide opportunities to grow.  For me, it is a chance to become a better practitioner of the things I think.  Emotions are not a weakness but giving in to their irrational behavior is.

The parts of the brain which control the regulation of emotions are also the ones that handle working memory, which involves your awareness and allows you to remain focused on the information you are taking in. As a result, you can determine relevant from irrelevant.  In short, you can function as a thinking human being and do things efficiently.  When your emotions are disturbed, then this part of the brain goes offline.  Calmness and learning to maintain your thought regulation under challenging circumstances is the power of your serenity. To function fully when the world is crashing, emotionally, all around you.  That is the goal of bringing calm into the front of your consciousness.

Some Calmness Ideas

So that is why you want to be calm, but how do you become better at it.  Learning to master your thoughts and understand how they affect you emotionally is the first step. Each of our thoughts are connected to emotion; it could be anger, happiness, contentment, restlessness, fear, or calm.  We have been conditioned in life to react to certain thought situations in a certain way. Understanding what these situations are for us is the first step.  To do this, one of the best tools you have is meditation.

Meditation is the simple act of learning to manage your thoughts and emotions in an organized way. It is nothing more than that. It doesn’t take a lot of skill or talent. Practice focusing your concentration on the thoughts you have and the effect they have on you.  Simple instructions can be gained today through an app on your phone.  Focused breathing works for me to get my mind under control, but other people use different techniques. The goal is to find calm in the mess of your mind, so keep trying to find the best method of meditation for you.

Mindfulness From This

Mindfulness, or living in the present moment, is another good focus to bring calm to your thoughts and your life. Many of the ideas that disturb our lives and mix up our guide are those spent on regrets of the past and worries about the future.  The only moment we are guaranteed is right here and right now.  Our mind is a powerful and creative tool that, left unchecked, can create wildly negative scenarios that might happen in the future.  All are based on fear and worry. Most of these will never happen, and if they did, you would handle them.

The past is great for learning. It would be foolish not to use the experience from the past to become better today. However, it can be as detrimental to you as worrying about the future.  We all have done things, made decisions, and had experiences in the past that we carry regrets about. The past is gone, and we can’t get it back, no matter what we do.  All of our programming, the emotional responses we have to events today were created there. So a clear understanding of the emotions we felt all of our lives allows us to deal with today in a much more efficient manner.  Bring that knowledge into the present moment where it can do you some good.

Be Calm Today

Look at your emotions today and start to build some emotional understanding. It isn’t easy to remain calm if we never deal with or talk about our feelings.  At least, you may create a fake peace by ignoring an emotion and dismissing it for the time being, but these things will come back to you and erupt like a volcano if you don’t release the emotional pressure a bit at a time.  Releasing your tension comes by recognizing what you feel and expressing that, and hopefully talking about why you think the way you do.

Developing the ability to maintain calm in your emotional storm will allow you to create an effective, inspirational regulation program. This peacefulness keeps your brain from going offline when you hit an emotional event and will enable you to perform better, understand yourself more and become better as people. So bring the factor of calm into your consciousness today and take a look at your emotions.

“It’s all about finding the calm in the chaos.” Donna Karen

“Ships don’t sink because of the water around them; ships sink because of the water that gets in them. Don’t let what’s happening around you get inside you and weigh you down.” Anonymous

“Calmness is the cradle of power.” Josiah Gilbert Holland

“I breathe in calmness, I breathe out stress.” Anonymous

 

21

Silence

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There are a precious few moments that are truly silent and fewer still in life people are aware of. All of our moments seem to be spoken for with a wide variety of visual entertainment available, intensive video game experiences, and the constant attention on our phones. Few moments are free to be silent. But still, the silence is there waiting for us if we take the time and make an effort to hear it. You must do this because it will benefit you in your mental health and help you become the best at whatever you want to accomplish.  Listening to the available silence is good for your mood, too, because it is an easy way to bring you into the present moment and out of negatively charged thoughts of the past or the future.  So let’s take a moment and start finding the silence.

Listen to Silence

Even though our life experience is probably something else, silence is always available to us. Many are afraid of the quiet because there is only you when you are not distracted by something else. That can be intimidating, scary, and even seem lonely, which creates an uncomfortable feeling that people want to avoid.  It doesn’t have to be that way because once you ease into this silence and become more comfortable with yourself, you will recognize the strength in yourself.  There is always a silence existing underneath the noise and activity, and it is waiting there for you to access it and experience its power and strength.

Listening to the silence immediately creates a stillness in you. This stillness is like a pond in the early morning with no wind, and it is a soft reflective pool where the best of your possible ideas can go to develop.  The stillness in you is rare to find and has been difficult for me to maintain, but the time I do get to spend listening to the silence revitalizes thoughts and allows me to feel what it is I am seeking in my life. A chance to separate the thoughts of value from the thoughts of foolishness. It is also a chance to deal with your emotions and where they come from.

Your Reflecting Pool

You are more than the physical body you travel around in each day. You are more than the job you have or the things you own. Those are just things you have accumulated. Some people are better at accumulation than others. That doesn’t make them great people. Great people understand who they are, and that person is accessible through the silence. We are all trained from childhood to identify with the mind and treat it and the thoughts it creates as if that is us. It isn’t. When you ask a question with your mind, someone answers. Who is that? You can pull back and watch your thoughts come to you, and if you are watching the thoughts, you can’t possibly be the thoughts.

When you are identifying with your mind, you are being cut off from who you really are. If your whole sense of self is identified with thinking and you can’t access and live from the space of who you really are.  This leads to underlying feelings of unhappiness, longing for something that you can’t quite put your finger on. That is the true self, struggling to send you a message. The silence allows the message to get through. Becoming conscious of this being is done by reclaiming your consciousness from the mind, and people can do that by allowing all things to be silent and exist in the cool, calm, reflecting pool of your existence.

How to Focus on What You are doing

The focus starts when a person stops Identifying with their thoughts all the time. Our minds are great tools we should use to solve problems, help create things, and weigh our decisions’ value. It is not who we are, and neither are the thoughts we think. Drawback and look at your thoughts. Take five minutes and without a filter, write down everything you think. How many of your thoughts are repeated, or useless, or both. Notice the tenor of your thoughts. Are they kind? Helpful? Mean? Judgmental? Let your thoughts slide by you without reacting to them and their power. Choose to pay attention to the thoughts that honor you and represent what you want them to.  Once you let them go, you can find the silence.

Silence is found in between thoughts and emotions. Take time and see how you feel about things. What are you avoiding, denying, or resisting in life? When you see yourself feeling unease or nervous about something, that is something you should deal with. Search your soul, search your mind in the quiet spaces, and it is at this point your journey to self-discovery and personal growth. It all begins with the silence. Take time to find the calm and silence in your everyday life and see what secrets it holds for your life.

“Silence is a source of great strength.”- Lao Tzu.

“He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.”- Elbert Hubbard.

“The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenements halls and whispered in the sounds of silence.”- Paul Simon.

21

Challenges

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What would your life look like if you were more positive in your thoughts?

challengesNo matter how confident and successful you are, life has a way of throwing challenges at you that will push you to make decisions redefining who you are and your substance.  In everyone’s life, there will be events that force a constant expression of this experience and force you to take actions that will bring growth in your life.

In the end, even after facing a challenge,  I like to think that we have found a more galvanized understanding of who we are, and we hold on to this self-image with a more critical and realistic passion. Sometimes the challenges are so overwhelming that it takes quite a bit of time to find your equilibrium and look at things with a more open mind and accepting heart.  Will you find positivity at the end of a challenge in life? Only you can tell that for yourself. I have always thought I would. But recently, my life has taught me many things from challenges. I have experience loss, betrayal, poor judgment and found a perspective of forgiveness and, hopefully, positive growth in all areas of my life because of it.

Being Positive, When the World is Negative

Even though I have spent a lot of time learning about the power of being positive, I know positive thoughts produce positive energy. I have, on positive_redcoccasion, slipped into being judgmental and critical of others for no reason other than because I was experiencing something negative. When you are experiencing fear of any kind and are afraid of your needs not met, this can happen.

Being positive becomes difficult when you look at life and the people in it as things that affect you, rather than seeing them as people who are just doing the best they can to survive day-to-day.  All people have weaknesses, and from time to time, they are annoying and rub you the wrong way.  One of the biggest challenges in life is accepting these negatives and still supporting and highlighting the positives of every individual in your life. The things that annoy us the most are the weaknesses we see in ourselves. We are maintaining a focus on love, understanding, acceptance, and kindness, which can be a challenge, and the reward in accepting others is a better view of ourselves.

It becomes challenging to do this when an atmosphere of negativity engulfs you, focusing on the negative features of things like judgment, sarcasm, and just being plain mean.  That is when you have to work a bit harder to find the positives.  The best way that I have found is to look for the things that are going right and not worry about what is wrong with the job, community, or each other. Especially each other. 

Find Time For You

No matter how busy you think you are or what others believe you should be doing, it would help if you found time dedicated to yourself.  Scheduling this can be a challenge, but vital to allowing person la growth. Rather than get all wrapped up in the daily chores, problems to be solved, and performance, find time for you. Don’t lose your focus on pure kindness and courtesy; people should show one another each day.

One of my favorite ways to maintain a more positive focus is to spend a little time each day learning something new and digesting that information productively and healthily. You are never too old to learn, and growth is a lifelong process.  Learning about yourself makes you less judgmental of others and keeps the focus where it belongs, on your thoughts and ideas. Those who don’t find growth are slowly dying. Finding time to think and put your experiences into perspective will allow your life to have a much more significant flavor. Life is continually trying to teach you lessons. Your reflection is their chance to sink in and make an impact.

Focus Your Energy

All experiences are going to change your life in one way or another.  People often choose to let most of what happens to them be negative and spend time trying to overcome whatever life has given them.

focus expandsI think there is a better way, and that is to remove the labels of good or bad that are associated with experiences and label them all “Experiences.”  Changing our perspective can be difficult when things are personal, but in reality, everything that happens is just an experience that brings something to our lives that we apply value to, good or bad.  We choose to smile and take what we can or to frown and feel overwhelmed by things happening to us. We have a choice.

The choices we make in each moment will determine the path of our day, and our days discover the way of our lives. There are many great things in life we all experience each day, from pleasant weather to a good cup of coffee. We need to notice and appreciate them.  Being grateful for the positives in life will always take the focus and power away from the negatives.

What if you decided to accept everything that happens to you as if you chose it? 

What you spend your time and effort focusing on in your life will increase.

“Keep your face to the sunshine, and you cannot see a shadow.” — Helen Keller.

“Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you’ll start having positive results.” — Willie Nelson.

“Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.” — Lyndon B. Johnson.

“In order to carry a positive action, we must develop here a positive vision.” 

 

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!!!

21

Silence

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silence
When you are still, you can hear the words the silence has to offer

Is there anything quite as unique as silence? Look at your life and honestly count and evaluate the moments that you are experiencing absolute silence. To me, this is any time that you are completely devoid of any human-created sound at all.

No words, no machines, no music, no nothing but the natural sounds of the world. How many times during any given day does this happen? I can tell you that there are few moments of complete and utter silence in my life for me. There is a value in the silence that, if you get used to, it will allow you to put your mind at rest and allow you to talk with your deeper self, which often remains hidden behind the crowd of sounds we experience daily.

Silence Can Be Better than the alternative.

Seek out your silent moments because they will provide more value to you than 95% of the noise that falls on your ears throughout the day. If you are watching television to get your news or entertainment, silencethen I think we would all have a difficulty rating the value of the product you are watching to silence. In silence, there are no lies. Nobody is pushing an agenda to vie for control of your buying power or the fear you experience.

Some people talk an awful lot and say absolutely nothing worthwhile. Isn’t a silence better than listening to words that are disingenuous, hateful, gossiping, or just plain old negative? Why break the silence to participate in making the world a less positive place? There is a place and a time for everything, and silence needs to have its location in your life.

Silence The Mind

How do you silence the mind? This is where the practice of meditation comes in. I was always intimidated by the practice of meditation, but in giving it a try, I have found it is easy. The best advice I got was that there is no way to really do it wrong. If you give it an honest effort, you will reap some benefits. The goal of meditation is to quiet the incessant and continual discourse of thought occurring in your head all of the time.

Our brains are great at producing thought, but most of its work is not productive, supportive, kind,

of silence
There is no wrong way to find yourself in the silence.

constructive or clear. Most of our thoughts trip on each other and repeat loudly points of view we are well aware of or thoughts of pure foolishness. When you slow your mind, you can monitor your thoughts and pick and choose the ones you want to pay attention to and those you would like to discard.

There are many different formats for meditation, and I am no expert. Here is a simple method that will allow you to walk down the path of meditation easily. Inhale and count to four. Hold the breath and count to four. Exhale while counting to four. Repeat continually throughout the meditation time. Notice the thoughts you have, where they come from, and most importantly, is it a thought that honors you or not? If it does, pay attention to it. If it doesn’t, then pay no more attention to it. Silence allows this to happen.

Sometimes It is The Best Gift

It is human nature to offer advice, state our opinions, and make sure that we are clear about where we stand on all our exposed issues. Sometimes, though, the best thing we can do is keep our mouths closed and silently listen.  Our presence has power, and oftentimes, just being there listening, giving a person your support is the best thing to contribute to another person.

A hand to hold or a shoulder to cry on, or an ear to listen with is a great gift that you can give someone. If they are sincerely working through something, they do not have to hear a judgment from you or listen to your opinion about the next action or reaction. Silence allows you to accept them as they are and be there as a friend.  Silence accepts all and allows a feeling of acceptance.

Look for moments of complete silence in your day, where all people can hear no voice, music, or machine in your life. Focus on the moment you are in and listen to what the silence sounds like. You will find some things in the silence you didn’t know you were missing.

“Never assume that loud is strong and quiet is weak.”

“Silence is the best response to a fool.”

“Some hearts understand each other, even in silence.”

“Silence isn’t empty; it’s full of answers.”

“Sometimes, it’s best to stay quiet. The silence can speak volumes without ever saying a word.”

No one dares disturb the sounds of silence……..

 

21

Time

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Time is On Your Side

activities lose track of time

We should all find activities in life that cause us to lose track of time and, more importantly, to not worry about what we “should” be doing with those precious moments.

 In our daily lives, we are controlled by the clock.  From the time we have to go to work to the time we are allowed to eat, and the time we can rejoin the freedom of life yet again.  Time can be an all-controlling factor if you let it, but it does not have to be. You can live your life in your own time.

My Thoughts on Time

getting off track with timeIn reality, time is an invention of man to measure how we are doing in life. Our entire lives are run on time, from when we start our education to when we retire and every facet in between.

Yet what is time but an arbitrary agreement between us all that how long it takes the sun to move around the sun in a year? The time that it takes for the Earth to spin on its axis constitutes a day. Would the workweek be longer if it took more time to journey around the sun?  Would we need less sleep if the day was shorter?

Really time is an agreement among all people on how we should measure our lives, and measure we do.

Getting Off Track with Time

henrydavid2x1For myself, when I am totally engrossed in an activity, there is a suspension of this arbitrary rule of time.  Whatever activity I have been doing must be my complete focus.  Not a part of my focus but the whole thing.

Writing to me becomes this many times.  Leave all other thoughts behind and commit to the task of capturing a thought.  There is no thought about what I am doing next or what has happened before but only the thought of the words and the page’s expression.

The time fades, and the thoughts continue to express.  Yet this is not the only time I have experienced timelessness.

Finding the Timelessness Each Day

meditationThis is really a difficult thing to do, but shouldn’t there be a moment during each day when time really doesn’t matter? I have found this in different places over the course of my life.  Meditation is a great one.

I currently have about 15-20 minutes dedicated to this.  Since I am relatively new at meditating, I am always shocked when you achieve clearing your mind, and time really doesn’t matter.  It still exists, but it doesn’t apply to that activity.

 I do not set the alarm, but that time seems to pass quickly, sometimes like a second or two. When you lose your awareness of something, does it matter?  This is definitely a time where I lose track of time.

When you achieve mindfulness in any activity, then losing track of time is a consequence.  If you are worried about finishing what you are doing and then doing the next fifteen things on a list, then there is no way you will lose track of time.

In fact, the time’s awareness will allow you to feel that you don’t have enough time.  That is just a perception because time doesn’t really exist anyway.  When I focus on the task at hand and experience what comes with it, I can lose track of time.

Love Of Course Takes Time

love is timelessAs anyone who has experienced the pangs of love will know, time does not seem to exist the same as it does anywhere else.  I believe that is because your entire being would not rather be anywhere else but fully engrossed with the object of your affection.

 How many days have you spent that moved by quickly in the experience of love?  Yet as you recall them later, you can remember each part of the experience?  How they smiled, how their touch felt? How much you just loved being with them?

These feelings are definitely the times in life that I have lost track of time.  Unfortunately, it isn’t easy to keep these moments and to make every day like that.  I am told that some can do it. I had only had a few fleeting moments in life when I lost in the moment with love.  They were good moments.

Conclusion

When you can focus completely on what is happening in your life, time becomes less important, and you are apt to lose track of it.  I know there is a time for all things, yet I think that much of the magic of life occurs when we stop keeping track of time and just let things happen as they should. Focus on the moment at hand, not the hands-on clock.

 

 

Spiritual

My Shift in Progress

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Understand that there are great gifts that come with getting older , we shift into a new understanding.
Understand that there are great gifts that come with getting older, we shift into a new understanding.

The recent passing of Dr. Wayne Dyer has led me to contemplate some of the thoughts that he provoked in me that led to my own personal growth. One of Dr. Dyer’s projects was called the Shift. The shift was a movie and a book about finding your true purpose in life and doing the things that truly make you happy. It teaches many wonderful lessons, and the project has a lot of layers. You can watch it more than once and something new will jump out at you each time.  The shift is the natural movement in life that we experience as we age and become more experienced.  We shift in personal empowerment. Here are some of the lessons I learned from this wonderful project.

We are Connected You and Me

We start to look at the world and see the connections to everyone and everything. As younger people, most buy into a philosophy of competition and separation.  We are all connected with each other and everything and that is a phenomenon I would never have considered 15 years ago.

Money Doesn’t Matter

The motivations of life change as you move along in life. It isn’t the material possessions and the money that motivates you anymore. Now it is the ethics of a situation and the people we are associating with. It my shiftis also the peace that we find in the quiet moments of life. As younger people, there are no quiet moments of life. That is the way life is. Serenity comes with contemplation and understanding of what makes you truly happy in life.

Miracles Can and Do Happen

One of the greatest shifts is that we move toward accepting the possibility of miracles in our lives.  To believe in this possibility will provide a wonder to your life that will energize you. Not everything can be planned out and you are not responsible for the actions of the Universe. If you let them and look for them, you can see miracles almost every day. Miracles can be a part of your life.

Quiet Times are Valuable

Meditation should and can be pursued as a daily practice. I personally never considered meditation as a practice when I was younger. I saw it as a waste of valuable time. Now I think that there is no more valuable way to spend your time. Looking to make your mind quiet allows you to speak to your soul. That voice is much quieter than your mind but is rarely wrong. I learned to listen.

We are Connected to Everything

Being an individual in the world can be a scary thing. When you realize that there is part of you in all changeBetterthings, you feel much less alone and the fear dissipates. Look at the sky, the trees, the animals or any part of nature and if you look closely you can see yourself. There is a feeling of connection to the world that only humans can experience.

Acceptance is Better than Judgment

Finally, the need to judge everything and everyone lessens and disappears. You realize that all people are fighting their own difficult battles in life and in different circumstances, you could be right where they are. People make a million decisions each and every day and sometimes they do not have positive results. There is no value in a judgment of others, it is only through acceptance that your personal power can grow. Judgment is not hurting those you judge but the one who is doing the judging.

In the end, I am sure that I am not saying anything that others haven’t already learned from Wayne Dyer, but for me, his voice allowed life to make a lot more sense to me. The movie The Shift is available for free online for the next week. I urge you to take the time and watch it.

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