Tag Archives: Mindfulness

21

Mindfulness

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All of us are looking for happiness. When you look at the result, we would like to experience all of our choices, and we hope to find satisfaction. However, it seems like many people let other things get in the way of their happiness.  Anger, jealousy, worry, or just plain fear grab ahold of your mind and stop you from reaching the ultimate goal of being happy in life.  The attachments we build to relationships, events, jobs, or anything else prevent us from enjoying the experiences we have every day.

Let it Go

It starts with the things we are attached to in thought. The attachments we make stem from the beliefs that we learned as children and never questioned. Thoughts about security, happiness, survival, success, we believe all these things in our lives are necessary to be happy.  Most of these things we hold on to are not the path to happiness but obstacles to it.

We are taught a narrative from a young age about what a successful education, career, and family life should look like in your life. People spend years cultivating this perceived image of success. We attach tightly to it, even though it may not make us happy. Letting go is difficult because our jobs have become a part of our identity.  Changing the narrative can be difficult because we worry about being accepted and what others, even those closest to us, think.  Let go of your attachments and see what happens.

Paradise and Hell

Inside each of us is the potential for heaven and the potential for hell. We decide which one shows up in our life. However, much of what happens to us is out of our control. How we react to everything is 100% of our choice.  We have the potential to build favorable circumstances or negative ones. Our selection of focus will determine what manifests in your life and how you affect the world.

If our choice is to wallow in the suffering of past hurts and sorrows, then this is a choice that will lead to a negative experience in your life. You are deciding to allow those negative feelings to grow inside you, and what we nurture inside will show up on the outside.

The good news is that no matter how negative you are currently or have been in the past, change can happen right now at this very moment.  The opposite thoughts are available to you right now. If you are experiencing fear, choose feelings of love. If you are bitter, focus on thoughts of acceptance. By concentrating and focusing on the positive, the seeds grown will choke out the negative in all aspects of life.

Be Mindful

This attitude leads to the practice of mindfulness. It means to plant your focus squarely on today and what is happening in your life right now—not allowing yourself to get lost in the memories of the past or trapped by thoughts of the future.  Practicing mindfulness can provide positive energy throughout the day, and that positive wave is available to you at all times.

Focused breathing is a simple way to bring your mind into the moment and to choke out random thoughts of the past or future. Happiness is at the moment. Not all moments are great to experience, but each moment of life has the potential for the experience of joy. You will miss this if your mind is lost in the past or floating around in the future.

Manage your Focus

A focus of thought is the next step, and it works with mindfulness. Once you can center your thoughts on what is happening today, then weeding out the ones that negatively affect you is easy to do.  Concentrating will not allow thoughts of potential suffering or fear of the future to stop you from living a vital and happy life right now.  Life is a test, and there will be moments that test you. Real growth would be painful without them.

Notice Your Thoughts

Clarity is the result of all of this.  Seeing the world as it truly is and finding happiness in that experience. We are not worrying about what MIGHT come tomorrow or regret or be fretting over the past.  This realization will set you free from the suffering thoughts of anger, jealousy, and fear. The result will be feelings of true happiness. We all can use this insight, but it seems few take advantage of it to increase our level of satisfaction. That choice, as in all things, is yours.

  • “Be ever happy inside. You can’t change things outside of you, but you can change yourself.”
  • “There are no obstacles: There are only opportunities!”
  • “There is no greater power than to smile at failure, no more beautiful an ornament to your being than a genuine smile, and no beauty greater than the smile of peace and wisdom glowing on your face.”
  • “Live quietly in the moment and see the beauty of all before you. The future will take care of itself.”
  • “Forget the past, for it is gone from your domain! Forget the future, for it is beyond your reach! Control the present! Live supremely well now! This is the way of the wise.”
  • “Accept change as life’s only constant. Life is change.”

 

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

Feel Happier

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This is a much more difficult concept than it appears on the surface.  You can’t just will yourself to be happy. It has to come from the focus of your daily consciousness. As you become more aware of positive things inside you, the level of happiness you experience will increase. Too often, I have allowed my thoughts to dwell on negative things I don’t have rather than positive things happening all around me. I wanted to share my 5 secrets to experience a bit more happiness every day. They are not difficult to do and will make a huge difference in your life if you really focus on them each day.

Accept your current situation.

acceptanceMany people look at their job, their family life at this moment, or any other experiences they are involved in, and they choose to be unhappy because it is not where they think they “should” be. Or even where they wish they could be. Challenges arise, people leave, relationships end. We wish they wouldn’t.

At this point, you have a choice, to spend your time living in the past of what used to be, in the future of what may or may not come, or to live exactly where you are right now. The only time you have is right now, and the only place is where you are. So take the time to experience it fully, and if you don’t like what you have, it is time to start changing. You are where you are, and your life is what it is.

This doesn’t mean you have to like where you are or have to stay there,  but it is where you are.  Until you honestly accept that reality, it won’t be easy to move on to situations that will bring more enjoyment and happiness into your life.

Gratitude is the Attitude

gratitudeLearning to be grateful for the things you do have will allow you to feel more happiness inside.  At first, it may be difficult to count the good things in your life, but when you start to be grateful, you will start to enjoy all of the little things in your life. You will start to look for things in life that you can be grateful for. It will open the door to an abundance of what you want and need in life.

I also believe that once you start to feel grateful for the things you do have, then it will create that gratitude attitude and attract more desirable things to your life. You never really see all the good things you have and how fortunate you are when focusing your attention on something you don’t have.  Focus on what you do have, and that energy will increase. Soon you will find you have more great things and you will be happier. It is all about gratitude.

Be Passionate About What You Do

passionFind out what you are passionate about and do that.  It is a simple solution to being unhappy, but if your job or activities in life make you unhappy, discard them for things that do make you happier.  Find where your passion exists and do that thing, fully and completely.  We were each put here to do something unique to us, and this will be your passion.  You have to feel it.

I know that making a living is important, but at what cost does it come? Are you willing to leave your passion and love for something in the rearview for the love of money? We have only a finite portion of time to spend on this planet, and to spend it on anything other than what makes you happy and alive seems to be a waste. So when you feel unhappy about your career choice, remember this. When you revel in your job, remember this.

Kindness Counts

kindnessThere are no limits to the good that kindness can do for you. If you are spending your time feeling sorry for yourself, you will be centered only on yourself and have nothing to do but feel sorrier.  Being kind to someone else is like rolling a pebble down a hill. It will build momentum.

The secret is that by being kind to others, you are really only being kind to yourself. To encourage someone who is down, compliment someone, so they feel better, perform a random act of kindness.  Whatever you do, you will find that the flames of happiness will start to grow in your heart.

Live for Now

live for todayThis goes back to previous thought, but all you have is today, and making that the happiest time you can is about all you can do. You can’t change the past, you can feel bad about it and be devastated by it, but the past is over.

Today is all you are left with. Tomorrow may never arrive. There are no guarantees. All you have is today.  Making the best of what is with you right now is the only sensible thing to do.

Don’t sit around and wish for tomorrow or yesterday; neither is going to help you. Instead, look for today for your solace. Enjoy the little things that make it great. A cup of coffee, a talk with a friend, the beauty of nature around you.  All of these things do not cost much money or are totally free.    Much like being grateful, enjoying the moment you live in will allow you to be happier. This is mindfulness.

Be happy like a baby!
Be happy like a baby!

In the End

In the end, whether you are happy or not comes down to a simple choice, be happy or don’t. You have very little control over what is happening to you right now, and stuff will happen whether you want it or not.  You can be unhappy about it and spend your life in spiteful misery, or you can choose to accept whatever is and be happy.   It is all a matter of attitude, and changing yours will provide a difference as stark as night and day. So be happy and feel great!   

 

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

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……..

 

Personal Development

Phone Issues

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133747The past week has been an eye opening experience for me as I was losing my phone but finding my connection. I did not have access to a phone. As I waited for my phone to be replaced, I had several days where I had no access to other people as I moved about my day. But the bright side was that nobody had access to me either. It was a unique experience that really highlighted our addiction (or at least my addiction) to personalized technology. The process has crept into all parts of our lives and now we scroll around through the mindless posts of Facebook in all of our “down” moments. Life has changed, and with the focus so much on technological devices, I am afraid that many of us are losing our connection to ourselves.

Remembered The Past, No Technology

In the not so distant past, the only way you could reach someone on the phone was to call them at their home. If a person wasn’t at their residence then they were unreachable. You left a message and waited for a reply. When you left a message for me, it could be awhile, as I was never much of a fan of talking on the phone.  As I went

For those who don't know. This is what a phone used to look like.
For those who don’t know. This is what a phone used to look like.

through the past few days,  I was reminded of those times. There is a certain freedom that people enjoyed before the electronic tether bound our hands, eyes and attention to the glow of a cell phone.

It seemed there was no chance anyone could interrupt what we were doing. My focus was not distracted by a message or a neat post on Facebook or Instagram. You never realize how much time you spend scrolling through foolishness until you don’t have that. It really took me back to a time before cell phones and the experience was a pleasant one.

What I Noticed Without Electronics

We are all creatures of habit, and the phone has become a habit that I think is not providing the healthiest of lifestyles. I was Put-your-phone-awaycontinually recognizing how much I used my phone and bringing that into my consciousness. Messages from Facebook, texts, phone calls, or many other forms of social media, are coming in at all times and they become a kind of addiction. Breaking it for a few days was an experience that revealed how controlled I am.

I found that the time I wasted scrolling mindlessly through my Facebook feed could be replaced quite easily with reading or thinking or having a conversation with someone in person. The amount of time and the things that I enhanced in my life during those days was really phenomenal. I noticed that with no phone or technology, I had more focus on all more substantial  things. I was able to increase my focus and creativity.

Can’t Fight Technology

I know that it is unrealistic to even for me to live in a world with no technology. But It is completely realistic

Too much of this and not enough conversation.
Too much of this and not enough conversation.

to live in a world with a tighter personal control on technology. I am going to be practicing some new things with technology. I already leave technology in my car when I go to the gym. That is my time to get physically healthy and not think about distracting or foolish things. No calls about business or even mindless chatter.

So I am going to add some more noncontact times to my life. One of my worst is first thing in the morning, I would scroll through Facebook as a part of my morning routine, but now I have found that time is much better spent reading something of substance. It gets the day off to a much better start.

In the End, Your Connection is Up To You

manycallers-mobilepic
How could you cut down your use of technology and improve your life?

I am not sure how our society has gotten to this point. Go anywhere and almost all people are staring into some sort of technological device. That makes the actual human contact, eye contact, connections very limited. I think that it also makes our lives a little less rich and a lot less fun. People and their unique personalities are the garnish that makes life so delicious. Through technology, all relationships are filtered and often you only see a fabricated version of the person.  In real life encounters, there are more substantial connections built and thoughts conveyed.

I encourage all people to cut the electronic tether for large portions of the day and replace it with activities that lead to growth and interaction.  There was a time when technology didn’t invade all of life and that is a place where your freedom just might live.  How could you cut down your use of technology and improve your life?

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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Some Things Worth Remembering

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 Have you done anything lately worth remembering?

21809682_have_you_done_anything_lately_worth_remembering_xlargeby Jon Hilton  – Day 16

Every day there are events that take place in our lives that we experience. Some are things we have to do, like work or eating.  Some are things we choose to do, like exercise or hobbies.

All of these activities combine to provide us with the experiences of our lives. There are some that you will remember always and some that you will forget almost as they occur.

 This is my attempt  to become more mindful of what happens each and every day and to make it so that each day is an event to remember and cherish.

The Power and Problems of Routines

Sometimes a routine can turn you into a sleep walker! Change.
Sometimes a routine can turn you into a sleep-walker! Change.

One of my major weaknesses as a human being is that I always try to put things into a routine. Organizing events in time so that they can be completed in the most efficient manner.

I have noticed the patterns I established in my life to do this.  From the time I wake up, to where I stop on the way to work, routines are good for making you feel secure.

 A routine will allow you to feel like you are in control and make you feel like you have some power, but in reality a routine can really be detrimental to your mindfulness of an experience.

 This is because once you march through life doing the same thing over and over, you start to do it without even thinking about it.  You are thinking about something else and just performing whatever task you are doing.

 People even get into a routine of interaction with others where the same people meet and have the same conversation every day.  You will know if this applies to you if you have a hard time remembering which day was which.

Change it Up and Live

New things can be powerful, but you have to try them.
New things can be powerful, but you have to try them.

Simple changes in your routine can allow you to appreciate the little things that you encounter each and every day.

I pretty much followed the same routine for about ten years at one point in my life. I could not tell you how any day was any different from another, except for the days where something happened to get me out of the normal existence.

Each of these moments I can recall with exact clarity, years later and it is because I was outside of the routine.

Focus on doing things Differently

Doing-Things-DifferentlyI am not able to do it every day but there are some days when I focus on doing things differently.  If I have fallen into a routine I try to do something different.  Wake up early, wake up late, eat a different food for breakfast, take a different route to work or stop somewhere I did not plan on.

The reason that these things will become memorable is because as you experience something for the first time you are mindful of it.  You can’t just go through the motions of something that you are not sure of.  This causes excitement and builds interest in your every day life even if you are not doing anything Earth shattering.

Why Each Day is Special

For each of us there is a clock which starts running the day we are born and runs out when we pass away.  There is no way to know when this clock will stop, it could be any second!

 I have always thought that if we knew we had a few days to live wouldn’t that change the way you existed.  Would you ever eat a meal that was so unmemorable that you can’t recall it two days later?  Or would you cherish and savor every drop of delicious goodness.

If you have ever experienced your own mortality, then you know that each second becomes something wonderful to experience and hold on to.  The sun never felt warmer, you remember the wind on your face. You know that you are lucky to be here and each moment is a gift.

You Choose What to Remember

seeing things differentlyIn the end I think that if there is anything worth remembering it is up to you.  You will always have the choice to remember today as the best day you ever had.

Or if you do not feel that today was a great day, then you have the chance to make changes in what you experience that will greet you on the next day.

I think that all of the things that I have experienced that have been unique, from the moments I spent talking to someone I had never met before to new experiences.

Everything I have done lately is worth remembering to me.

 Have you done anything lately worth remembering?

I Remember YOU!  Yes I am talking to YOU!

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