The Framework of Forgiveness – Revisited

We wrote this blog in 2016. But it seems to be very apropos for today as well. Just know…this road is a journey not a race with a finish line. Keep learning. It’s the way we continue to grow. Love…

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Forgiveness is one of the toughest challenges we face in this life.  But did you know the primary blocker to forgiveness has nothing to do with the act of another but everything to do with yourself?

This week I found myself infuriated with a person from work.  It all stemmed from something that I look at now and qualify as trivial.  A difference of opinion.  But I interpreted and ingested her comments and her tone as completely disrespectful and in front of others so therefore, my mind went into “attack back mode.”

SIDE NOTE: As my cousin and I continue to write this blog as we have over the past year and 3 months, full of advice, best practices of life and teachings there are two things I really want to convey to our audience…1) neither he nor I are emotionally immune to life as it happens and 2) we all learn by teaching.  And this blog has provided us an avenue to teach and learn at the same time.  And for that, we are forever grateful.

I could feel my blood pressure rise.  We got into the car with the other people and I launched back at her to “put her in her place” so to speak.  Then when we all got to dinner, I proceeded to completely ignore her and talk over her whenever she tried to speak or join in the conversation.  I woke up the next morning feeling the same.  I was MAD!  And I was aware that I was mad.  And being aware of your emotion is the first step to understanding the Framework of Forgiveness.

Enlightenment is about complete awareness.  In this situation, as it was happening, I was caught up in the “story” my ego was creating and sharing with my consciousness.  My ego was weaving a story of what all of this meant…”she disrespected you! She won’t get away with THAT!  You show her who’s boss!  Strike back to assert your authority!”  The ego will always feed the need to be “right” in any situation.  So as I prepare to start my day and head back to southern California with this person, I reflect on how I truly FEEL.  And what I desire to FEEL.  The framework of my forgiveness actually has nothing to do with HER but everything to do with ME.  Therefore, the second step to understanding the Framework of Forgiveness is to check your ego and humble your spirit. 

Humbling your spirit does not make you a doormat.  Humbling your spirit does not make you weak.  Humbling your spirit does not make the other person “right” and you “wrong.”  Humbling your spirit creates a path of allowance.  As we’ve stated before, there is only resistance and allowance.  When we are angry, upset, infuriated…all of our cells, organs and tissue becomes restricted.  This is why our blood pressure rises.  Because we are restricting ourselves.  Now imagine humbling your spirit and allowing yourself to breathe easy.  You immediately feel an opening of flow.  This is allowance.  When we understand what we DESIRE to feel and want to manifest that desire of emotion, we must create a path of allowance in order for it to flow.  Humbling your spirit is the catalyst to that allowance.  In that allowance, we now have the ability to create.  This is the third step in the Framework of Forgiveness.  Creation.

Create what?  Create what you desire to have happen next.  Creation can only be realized when it is born out of a loving space.  The love you want to experience has nothing to do with the person who made you angry but the love you have for yourself and the authentic desire to be in harmony with yourself.  Don’t be confused to take this as the passive aggressive approach to the situation.  “I’m just gonna love ME and ignore her.”  No.  Love to say, “I desire a harmonious relationship with this person because that is what is most healthy for ME.”  Create that space.  Envision that space.  Expect that space.  This is you loving yourself and desiring the best for your own well-being.  I once read something that said, “holding onto your anger against another person is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”  So LOVE yourself enough to release the limiting story your ego is creating.  YOU have the power to create the best space that makes you the happiest.  But it must be created from a space of love for not only yourself but for that other person and life in general.  If harmony is what you desire to create, then you must also embrace harmony as an expectation inclusive of all things.  THAT’S what “harmony” is.

So to reiterate…there are three steps to the Framework of Forgiveness:

1. Be Aware of Your Emotion.  Analyze what you feel.  Why do you feel that way?  Expose it all.  Go into detail about what you feel and why you feel that way without judgment of yourself or the other person or people.
2. Check Your Ego and Humble Your Spirit.   Your ego is equivalent to a bully.  The bully wants to intimidate you and make you THINK something is, that it is not.  When you stand up to the bully, the bully shrinks back into the insecurity from which it came.  Your ego is forever frightened of being exposed.  This is why it creates stories to justify its existence.  Put your ego in it’s place.  The authentic power you possess is in your spirit.  Your soul.  So be in touch with THAT instead of being in touch with your ego.
3. Create.  Once you have acknowledged and embraced your full emotion, understanding WHY you feel the way you do, then putting that emotion into context of your ego and your spirit, now you can create a space of allowance or flow.  Create what your expectations are. When understanding the Framework of Forgiveness, you have the authority to create a harmonious space because you are no longer restricted.  You have seen the issue, embraced your emotion, checked your ego, humbled your spirit and now you’re ready to create a brand new space that feels WONDERFULLY blissful to YOU.

Practicing these steps will offer you the best road to peace, happiness and tranquility.  Because the Framework of Forgiveness actually has little to do with the other person but everything to do with how you feel and how you DESIRE to feel.

Finding Your Place of Solace

sol·ace

/ˈsäləs/

noun

1. comfort or consolation in a time of distress or sadness.

   “she sought solace in her religion”

I often speak with people about meditation. Mainly because meditation is where I find my solace. The responses and dialogues are usually, “I can’t do it. I don’t know how. I WANT to do it but I don’t have time.” But the reality is, meditation is not some elusive, mysterious place that is difficult to do or hard to find. Meditation is simply communing with that authentic part of who you are and is the place where comfort and consolation are the “norm.” If you “can’t do it,” it’s because you are out of balance between your mind, body and soul. And if that is the case, you are the one who should be pursuing it most. If you “don’t know how,” that is easily fixed. There are a number of apps for iPhone and Android that can help. i.e. Calm, Head Space, etc. If you “don’t have the time,” then you are telling me you don’t care about your own peace. And in that instance, we can not help you. Your time is managed by YOU. And if you can’t make the time to take good care of YOU…nobody else will do it for you. But why is any of this important? Why should you even care? “Everything is great in my life!” Right? Perhaps. Or maybe not. But Finding Your Place of Solace is vitally important to your individual cycle of life and pursuit of happiness, joy and peace because it helps to provide balance.

As a child, or for some of us, even as grown ups, can you envision what it feels/felt like to lay in your mother’s arms? To hear her comforting voice. To feel the warmth of her body while she told you everything would be okay? Solace. Peace. Comfort. Or as grown ups, we may find our solace in other things, such as, our comfy beds with lots of pillows and just the right firmness in our mattress. We may find comfort with a bowl of soup or hot cup of tea on a wintry day. We may go to the spa for a massage, a facial a manicure/pedicure and let loose all the issues and challenges we faced that day. Or we may put on our headphones and crank up the loudest heavy metal we can find and that’s where we find our peace. However we choose to pursue our solace, we find our own individual ways of doing so. But for those of you who can’t, don’t or won’t…there is an imbalance that your mind, body and soul are calling for.

Without balance in our lives, everything…everything is off kilter. Without balance, everything is just a little bit harder. But for many of us, this is the life we live and therefore living out of balance becomes our new “normal.” And that’s why when we suggest gaining balance through meditation, stillness, quiet time, people “don’t have time, don’t know how, or simply can’t do it.” Balance becomes foreign to you. And a life of imbalance becomes what’s “real.” But what if you could maintain a certain sense of balance? Then life becomes more steady. Stable. And you are poised to move evenly through life. THAT is the importance of finding solace. It helps keep you on track with what you desire to feel in the midst of what would normally knock you off balance. Solace becomes a ‘rock’ in the middle of a storm. Unmovable. Unphased. Steadfast.

Personally, meditation is my solace. Meditation does not have to be for hours on end at the top of some mountain. Meditation can be as simple as a deliberate interruption in the middle of your day for 2 mins of focused breathing. Simply stop. And breathe deeply for a couple of minutes. Focus on your inhale and exhale. Don’t rush it. Just breathe. And think about your breathing. Immediate solace. Immediate calm. Immediate focus is what happens. This allows you to regroup, to collect yourself, to reevaluate. Now imagine these feelings in the midst of a hectic workday. How valuable would that be? Yet, we often times ignore these possibilities because we are “too busy handling life,” as one of my friends told me. My response to her was, “life is too busy handling YOU.”

When I am in the midst of meditation, I feel comfort. I feel joy. I feel compassion. I feel grounded. I feel strong. I feel centered. I feel relief. I feel the coziness of laying in my mother’s arms as a child. I feel love. And here is the key…the more I practice this during the down times of my day, the more those same feelings project themselves in the midst of and throughout my day! Even when I am not in meditation. And because of this, my entire demeanor, my words, my thoughts, my actions are impacted by what is permeating throughout my spirit. My interactions are calm, leveled, balanced. The same goes for my thoughts and words. Peace becomes the norm. Happiness is genuine. And love abounds throughout it all. Whenever anything comes to disrupt what I have created for myself, it is an easy mental retreat to my soul where peace, balance and steadfastness reside. So I “touch home base” and then respond confidently, unshaken, unmoved and with peace.

Investing in your solace provides an ROI of being even keeled, balanced and solid. You will not be shaken or deterred. Finding your solace is finding your “happy place” as people have joked about. Finding your solace is finding that safe place where your confidence is restored, where clarity is pronounced and where comfort is freely given. Finding your solace is finding your peace of mind in the midst of WHATEVER is happening around you. Retreat to your solace. And emerge with the personal victories you desire.

Take a Journey…

 Why not? Why not take a journey? Because it’s “safer” where we currently stand? Because we’re afraid we may fail along the way? Because we talk ourselves out of it with make-believe stories of “big bad wolves” and villains who will be out to get us? Why not take a journey? The “journey” is why we are here.

I have a friend who blows my mind because she goes on these trips where she dives deep in the oceans, she snow boards in Japan and other exotic places, she seeks high achievement in life in general. I have another friend who organizes city-wide youth sports in Flint, MI. A town that has been in the top 5 list of Murder Capital of America for 10+ years. Where they have contaminated tap water to this day. Where the violence, death and poverty are that of a war-torn 3rd world country. I have another friend who is a wonderful artist and paints murals of homeless people, sells the art and establishes bank accounts with the money to help feed the people he has painted. I have another friend who travels to foreign lands as much as possible. He covets places he’s never seen and therefore decides to visit these places to experience their country. These people are not filthy rich. They are not martyrs. These are everyday working, 9 to 5, regular folk. But they CHOOSE to embrace the journey of their lives. They CHOOSE to break out of the ordinary, the mundane, the routine…to explore what else is actually possible. It’s time. It’s time for you to TAKE A JOURNEY as well.

As we all reflect on 2018 and make our resolutions for 2019, we’d like to offer you a few things to think about. People often say, “life is short.” But then the statement is left right there with agreement from others. “Yeah, life sure is short. Better enjoy it while we can.” And then we go right back to doing what we had been doing the entire time. If life truly is “short” then we owe it to ourselves to LIVE it as if it is that way! So, in the midst of creating New Year’s Resolutions, plan on taking a journey! A journey that is amazing, challenging, beyond your comfort zone, outside of your ‘norm.’ Do SOMETHING different. Something different that aligns with your innermost desires. As Nike says, “Just Do It.” Why not??? Your ‘journey’ doesn’t have to be extravagant or costly. Simply decide to do something outside of what you normally would do. The more we do things that are outside of our comfort zones, the more we actually experience life instead of observing life.

If I set a resolution for 2019 that I will lose weight, the most popular behind going to the gym, I am making a choice to step out of my comfort zone of eating what I want and not working out. Right? Where many people fall short of these goals are the commitment to the process as opposed to being committed to the desire for physical change. If I am committed to my desire for physical change, eating properly and going to the gym are just steps that support my true desire. If I focus my attention on the dread of eating properly and going to the gym, my commitment will falter because I am putting eating right and the gym ahead of my priority which is my desire for physical change.

If your desire is to be great, at ANYTHING, be committed to that desire. The way you go about getting to that greatness will unfold but you need not be overly concerned with the “how” but more so with “why.” The “why” will ground your thoughts, actions and expectations. The “why” provides the direction you need to keep moving forward. Staying committed to the “why” provides motivation when you don’t feel like continuing. My friend who dives and snowboards is not rich. But she has reasons, the “why,” that drives her to be committed to work hard, plan, save money and GO to create a life experience that breaks her out of her comfort zones.

Our innermost desires are like seeds. Seeds that have been planted within us by God’s hand. And just like seeds of the earth, depending on the condition, those seeds can either sprout, take root and grow. Or they can lie dormant and eventually die. But EVERY seed begins with life. And the potential to manifest. Our seeds of desire are meant to sprout and grow. And just as a small acorn can sprout to grow a hundred-foot oak tree, our seeds of desire are meant to grow into abundance just the same. And when that oak tree grows, it also helps provide life, comfort and inspiration to others that revel in it’s majesty. The same goes for the seeds within us. Our seeds of desire are not only for us. They are not solely our own. Our seeds of desire work in unison, in tandem, together with our Universe, our environment, our life experience to touch, influence and inspire others, ALL while creating true satisfaction within our own life experience. Our lives help sustain and inspire other lives. Therefore, it is our duty, to ourselves and to others, to tend to our seeds, to nurture our seeds, to water them to be sure they grow.

So take a journey. Challenge yourself. Do something that aligns with your authentic desires. Decide to go beyond our resolutions and embrace what you truly desire without fear, without angst, and with an expectation of personal growth. Trying new things can be scary. When we stifle ourselves from what life has to truly offer, we are stifling our life experience and extinguishing our inner most desire. Create a routine that supports what you have committed to. And be sure your commitment is in the right place; your authentic desires. After all, “life is short. Better take advantage of it while we can.” And…WHY NOT???

You Don’t Have To Die!

The phrase “Rest in Peace” has been a fixture in American culture since as long as I can remember. Popular on gravestones; Highlighted in obituaries; People have “shouted it out” as a term of endearment regarding their lost loved ones, while pouring out a little liquor on the curbside in remembrance of their lost homie. Even songs have included the acronym- R.I.P. or more commonly used now, R.I.H, meaning rest in heaven, as a way of commemorating the person no longer living.

These three words, so easily said and seemingly innocuous, yet have profound implications.  Of course, there can be no rest without some sort of work or toil being done, or maybe even a struggle. Rest in peace implies that life and living is work, and hard, and that there’s no real peace until your dead.  “May his soul Rest In Peace,” we often hear.   As to say you can’t get any real peace while your living.  What are we suggesting we’re needing peace from and is it necessary to die before you can rest in peace? We don’t think so.  As a matter of fact, we say emphatically- NOT.

Notice how even in what should be our most relaxed and peaceful states, we’re restless. We toss and turn when we sleep.  We sit to meditate, and it feels tortuous at times.  Even when I’m in my yoga practice I often feel in competition and very distracted.  Naps are rare.  Time-outs in sports are filled with retooling for the next move.  Plane flights are often extended opportunities to “catch up” from things left undone and our efforts to rest are replaced with other mind-filling things like watching a movie, reading, and chatting.  When we get in bed there’s the cell phone, the TV, a book, or something.  Poolside at the Bellagio?  There’s definitely no rest- music, laughter, talking, drinking, eating, etc.  And of course, all these things are good relaxation tools.  But what we’re talking about here resting in peace, free from mental movement.

The fact is as it relates to resting, we have many opportunities, albeit some of us more or less than others, but we definitely do have those moments where we can reset.  But usually what happens is, if you’re like me, you’re busying yourself while you could be resting, even mentally I’m very busy.  And this becomes habitual, to the point where you’re never ever really resting until you go to sleep and even then, it’s sometimes a restless sleep of tossing and turning, and not one of peace.

Just imagine how much better we would all perform and how much more value we could add to our lives and the lives of others, if when we rested, we really rested?  The parent would be much more patient with the child, the lover would be much more compassionate to the loved one, humanity would be much more honorable to one another, with increased abilities to see each other beyond what we’re presenting to one another in our misbehaviors.

There is simply nothing that works better than deliberate intention.

The bottom line is, if you want a more peaceful life, we have to find the discipline it takes to be still, get quiet, and rest in peace (while you’re still breathing lol). Matter of fact, concerted efforts to breathe deeply significantly calm the nervous system in ways proven that nothing else compares.  Our desire for peace must supersede our desire to get it done.  And the irony is the more you deliberately rest in peace, the more focused you are, the more aware you become, and the more productive you are.  You can get more done in much less time because you are mentally clearer.   And the other byproduct is, all the things you been asking for, you now are more of a vibrational match than you were before.  The things you want can now come to you quicker because there’s less resistance.  When you deliberately rest in peace you are now in direct alignment with you inner-being.  You now share the same space as your higher self.  And in this space is where the “miracles” take place.  Because you’re offering little to no resistance, you and the Creator become one.

To rest in peace takes practice, but just as it is with anything else that you do long enough, it becomes a habit.  If you truly want a life of peace, there has to be an intention that involves making the effort to carve out specific times of the day where your deliberate intention is to be mindfully quiet and calm.  You can call it meditation, a timeout, or just chilling.  But in order for it to work, it has to be deliberate and consistent, and we promise you, you will see results.  And over time you see tremendous results.

So, don’t wait until your dead.  Rest In Peace while you LIVE in Peace NOW!

 

 

 

 

 

Directions for Your Day…

Think back to the first day you went to your job. You more than likely needed directions on how to get there. After you drove there a few times, it became familiar to you and then you knew where you were going. Now days, if you’ve been at your job for a while, you have a routine. You know exactly when to leave to avoid traffic. Or you know alternative routes if there’s an accident. Or if everything is good, you simply follow the routes you normally take. Mindlessly. You don’t have to think about it because you know where you’re going. It’s comfortable. And driving to work becomes a mundane, routine with little thought. Nothing ‘wrong’ with that. It’s simply what we do.

Driving to work becomes a very passive action during our days, where on the first day of work, driving there had our full focus. Our full attention. “Don’t want to be late on the first day.” Now our attention is perhaps what’s on the radio, or we’re driving thinking about what we have to do for the day or we’re thinking about what happened at work that day, etc. The point is, we get to the place where our focus is not on directions to get to work because we don’t need to give our focus or attention to that. It becomes routine. But if we are not careful, that routine or lack of focus on direction also mimics our lives. Our existence. We can fall into a “routine of life” without direction. We’re still functioning productively in life, but our conscious for direction becomes muted. Commonplace. Plain. Dull. Callous. And we call it “normal.” Or we say, “life happens.” But what if you gave “Directions for Your Day?” What would happen then?

Without direction to our days, we tend to ‘go with the flow’ of what the day brings. Our days begin to run together. Time “flies” when there is no focus. “What happened to the time?!?!? It was just yesterday when the new year started!” This is what happens when we don’t provide direction and focus to our days. We lose them in our consciousness. It’s hard NOT to know what happened when you were are paying attention to it all. By focusing our attention on our DAYS, we activate our intentions and desires for our LIVES.

If you have a really “bad day,” and we ALL have days that are less than what we desire, you probably did not wake up that morning saying, “hey guess what?!?!? I’m planning on having a REALLY bad day today! Let’s get it started!” That’s probably not your expectation. Right? But did you have an expectation in the first place??? When we are simply “going with the flow of life,” the directions for our day are no longer our own. We are not directing. We are following. Following the influxes of emotion, circumstance, unwanted desire, etc. In this case, no action is action. The lack of action we took in the morning regarding providing direction to our day says, “whatever comes our way will be reacted to.” And we are okay with that. Until we have a “bad day.”

Providing direction to your day is also action. By providing direction to your day, you activate your intention. And your intentions compliment your desires. DISCLAIMER: This does not only mean positive thinking. This means positive and intended ACTION as well. Try waking up tomorrow morning with intention. In our everyday lives we become slaves to our routines. Why? Because they’re comfortable. They don’t require any extra thinking or movement or focus on our parts. And we’re okay with that because we are stressed enough regarding the other things we are tasked to do! But taking DELIBERATE action and providing DELIBERATE focus to our intentions are how we escape from those stresses and the comfortability of our routines.

Wake up in the morning and provide directions on how your day will go. What do you expect to happen that is aligned with your desire? NOT, what do you expect to happen because “it’s raining outside so traffic is gonna be crazy.” Or, “it’s Monday so it’s gonna be horrible.” Or I had an argument yesterday with my spouse so “today will be terrible too.” But first, decide what type of day it is you actually DESIRE to have! Do you DESIRE your day to be fruitful, productive, peaceful, joyous? What??? Seriously. WHAT type of day do you desire to have??? Ask yourself this question EVERY single morning when you awake. And ANSWER yourself when you ask it. Whatever the answer you give yourself, make THAT your intention for your day.

The interesting thing is this: when we provide directions to our days, we activate our intentions through our focus. And that focus of intention is directly linked to our desire. We no longer are a passive player in the game of life but an active participant imposing our will on what life brings our way. We are completely empowered, creating our realities and manifesting our desires. We are giving direction to the Universe. And the Universe is designed to conspire to deliver on whatever it is we are intending with our desired focus. Direct your day! Command your desire. And manifest your intention. Why? Because you can!

Don’t Take It Too Seriously

“Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.”– Alan Watts

In keeping with last week’s post “This World Is Our Playground”, we want to continue the subject with Don’t take it too seriously!  

I know it seems extremely difficult to NOT take things seriously, when so many things are taking place that are indeed of serious nature.  How can we achieve things that greatly matter to us, address urgent issues like terminal illness, or critical children/family situations, job seriousness that occurs daily, and on and on?  The fact of the matter is we live in a very serious world where serious things are taking place all the time.  Or so it appears so.

When I first learned about the Law of Attraction, and how my attention to things is what brings more of those things to me, I began to shift my perception.  I had been brought up to believe that life was serious and that all of my decisions and actions were very, very important, and never to be taken lightly.  However, when you’re taking life so seriously, it becomes hard and difficult, and not much fun; AND law of attraction keeps its’ promise to deliver to you that which you take so seriously.  I remember when my mother was making her transition.  One of the things she said to me was “you need to lighten up and stop taking things so seriously.” I think we all would benefit if we “Lightened Up.”  And the lightening up is a process that never really ends.  While many days we consciously choose to take the path of least resistance, there are others where we allow worry and control to seep back in, right?

Life is supposed to be enjoyed.  And if it is not for you, then something is amiss.

Just imagine for a moment you lived life with a carefree attitude and approach. Just imagine you were more lighthearted and willing to laugh at yourself and the awkward circumstances that life throws your way. Just imagine how much less stress, worry, and anxiety you would experience. Wouldn’t life just be better? Wouldn’t you just feel better about yourself? Don’t you think that you would feel empowered- that no matter what life threw your way that it would never shake your confidence or state-of-being?

Alter Your Perception of Reality– Make a Mental Shift in How You Think

Okay, maybe you agree that you tend to take life a little too seriously, and that you want to lighten it up a little and make a change. You want to take a more lighthearted approach to living.You want to see the brighter side of life more consistently without all the stress, worry, and anxiety that typically eats away at us often.  How do we do this?

It all starts with making a mental shift and shifting your perception. This is all about making a shift in the way you think about your life and circumstances. It’s about shifting your perspective with how you choose to interpret the world around you.  It’s not so much about how the world is we live in, but rather how you perceive the world is.

The first thing to remember is that your perception of reality becomes your reality. In other words, your reality is colored by your expectations, and your expectations are a direct result of your beliefs.  And, of course, your beliefs naturally sprout from the thoughts you consistently allow yourself to dwell upon.

How you interpret the events of your life determines how you see them, how you feel about them, and how you subsequently deal with them. Likewise, how you interpret a person’s intentions affects how you respond to them. Therefore, in a sense, everything is relative and completely subjective.  It’s all up to you!   Isn’t that good to know.  You experience your reality based on how you have chosen to interpret that reality. Meaning that everyone’s experience can and will be slightly different.

Given this, it’s important to become aware that you always participate in how you view the world, the people, and the circumstances around you. Make a shift in how you think, and you subsequently alter how you interpret your world and what you experience as a result. This is a first important step that helps bring everything together full circle.

Make It a Game-

Next, approach your day and life as if it was a game, a board game of sorts, with different players having roles, some of which you’ve assigned to them, some who’ve shown up to play along with you.

I work.  A lot!  In my line of business, it is in fact very serious in nature in terms of service and product delivery that helps improve people’s quality of life.  So, it is very easy to get caught up in the seriousness of the whole thing.  I have found it very empowering to make a game of it.  A problem-solving type of game.  This may sound silly, but it works!  I approach different scenarios just the same way I would if I were playing a competitive board game.  I make it fun for me.  My days are so much more enjoyable.   Life doesn’t have to be hard, and neither does my work.  Taking this approach has one profound effect for me- It raises my vibration significantly!

Be Sincere but not Serious

Lastly, be sincere but not serious.  What this means is be deliberate and intentional with your truest desires and what you want out of any circumstance or situation, but don’t be burdened with how it turns out. Be sincere about what you want, but not serious about the outcome.

Fear less, worry less, don’t be so anxious.  All is well- REALLY!  There’s absolutely nothing occurring that you and God can not handle.  Laugh more, love more, give more!   Enjoy this wonderful life we’ve been given.

This World Is Our Playground…

  “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” Holy Bible, Romans 12:2

Would you like to play all day? Or work all day? What about if your work felt like play because you worked at doing what you love to do most? Would it still feel like work? Or would it be play? Most of us have never even considered the possibility. We are too busy “living life.” But the truth is, we aren’t too busy living life. We are too busy assimilating to what we believe we are supposed to be doing in life instead of pursuing what we’d love to do most. And THAT’S why it feels like work. Please allow me to show the way to the playground of life.

1. Get to Know the Authentic YOU – Your soul is your life-force. Your soul is what animates the body. Without a soul the body is dead. Our souls have no expiration dates but our bodies obviously do. Therefore, in the time we spend on this planet, our bodies are not the most important thing. The authentic YOU, your soul, should be the most important part of living. Our souls are the true essence of our being. Our souls are what commune with our Creator before we come to Earth and while we are here. Our ethereal souls have power and command over all things material on Earth. Meditation brings you closer in alignment with your soul and with God. Meditate.
2. Follow Your Passion – Each of us are unique. We all have various characteristics that help define who we are. Our passions in life also make up our uniqueness. We often neglect, negate and discount the things we are most passionate about because we look to equate and make connection between what is ethereal and what is material. For example, how many people do you know who are passionate about singing? They can actually sing like a bird but instead of following that passion, they relegate it to, “I can’t make no money on that. I need to pay my bills today!” So their passion becomes neglected. Passion does not have to equate to any particular talent. You may be passionate about helping others, running marathons, working in Corporate America…anything. But the important thing is to identify what you are passionate about. Do not simply go through life ignoring what you love to do. That thing that you would do even if you were not being paid. Pay attention to it. Focus on it. It’s uniquely yours.
3. Pursuing Your Purpose – One of the main reasons why your passions should never be ignored or neglected is, your passions are closely related to your purpose. People often ask the question, “what is my purpose in life?” The answers lie in what you are passionate about. Whatever THAT thing is, should be explored, time should be invested and nurturing that passion should be priority. Following your passions help reveal your purpose. The ‘money’ you need to make and the bills you need to pay right now which preclude you from following your passions are self-imposed road blocks that stifle your purpose. Open your mind to the possibilities of how you can use your passions to fuel your purpose. Don’t let a material thing such as money, stop you from fulfilling your spiritual purpose. Follow your passion, find your purpose. And then create a vision for yourself and your purpose.
4. Put Your Imagination to Work – We are created in God’s image. ALL things created started with a singular thought. At some point, someone thought there should be a better and quicker way to communicate. So instead of the Pony Express delivering mail and messages, the telegraph was created. Then the telephone, but you had to be patched to another network by a person. Then it evolved. Now days, our cell phones carry more technology than the spacecraft that landed on the moon. When we focus our passions to align with our purpose, we do not need to figure out the ‘end game’ of how it will pay us. The first step towards fulfilling your passions and purpose is not to take immediate physical action. As stated last week, Deliberate Thought IS Action! Therefore, THINK and imagine what it is you want. Imagine what it looks like to be living within your passion and purpose. Imagine what it FEELS like and allow yourself to actually be in that space, feeling and experiencing what you love to do. Provide detail to this vision; what are you wearing? What are you speaking about? Who else is there? What are they doing to help support your vision? Imagination is the catalyst to manifestation. Imagine operating within your purpose.
5. Play with Perpetual Creation – You are God’s perfect creation. Why? Because the Creator created us to perpetuate creation! Everything continues to expand, evolve and grow. New thoughts, new dreams, new visions are created by the trillions, daily. As an individual, you have continuous thought on how to solve for challenges, how to experience your dreams and how to develop something new in your life. This causes everything to move and grow. From the simplest of things to the most complex of challenges, growth remains consistent. Through struggle, growth happens. Through chaos, growth is birthed. Through desire, dreams are manifested. We are derivatives of The Most High. It is in our spiritual DNA to perpetuate creation. This is why your dreams are not only possible…but probable.
6. The Meaning of Life on Earth – This is an aged-old question that has a very simple answer. We are the ones who make it complicated. The meaning of life on Earth for us is, to commune with our passions and to identify our purpose. Once we’ve identified our purpose, it is up to us to imagine and envision that purpose being manifested. When we do that, we perpetuate God’s creation while living life at our fullest potential, thus satisfying the reason why we came here in the first place. THIS is the way we honor God wholly and completely.

So be free! Free yourself from the self-inflicted spiritual incarceration that says you can not live within your purpose because you are bound by material responsibility. Free yourself to embrace your truest passions and desires. Embrace the true power of the authentic you as a spiritual being with power and dominion over ALL material things. Use this time while you are here to perpetuate creation. We come here to Earth to play! To play with the power of creation that God has blessed us to have. Go. Play. And have a great time while you’re at it.

 

 

Deliberate Thought IS Action

In a discussion with my daughter, we were talking about the state of our communities, country, and world we live in, and she made a statement to me.  I was explaining to her that the reason we are where we are in the world as a society, and the reason anybody is where they are, is that we have focused our attention too greatly on what we don’t want and on desires that are not our truest, as mentioned last week in What Do you Want???  We have exerted most, if not all, of our nonphysical energy towards that which is unwanted.  And because this is an attraction-based Universe, more of the unwanted is forever showing itself.  My daughter said, “so you’re saying everybody should think more about what they want and that’s going to solve the issues. What about taking action?”

My response to her was, “anytime you choose to focus your thoughts and attention on a subject, whether it be in the positive or negative direction on that subject- YOU ARE TAKING ACTION.  Deliberate thought IS action.”

It is not so much how the world is, but how you THINK the world is.

The Master once asked his disciples which was more important: wisdom or action.  The disciples were unanimous: “Action, of course. Of what use is wisdom that does not show itself in action?”  The Master said: “And of what use is action that proceeds from an unenlightened heart?”

It’s not about simply taking action.  It’s about taking mindful, inspired action that only derives from deliberate thought and deliberate thinking, that is aligned with your highest purpose. Some of us believe that any action is good action- not so.  Action misaligned, action that is not purpose-driven, results in unfulfilled hopes and wishes.  This is why we keep having the same problems and coming up with seemingly new solutions, only to fall back into the same issues we’ve always had.  Your thoughts are so much more impactful than your physical action.

When you have a problem and you focus your deliberate thoughts on a solution that aligns with your inner being, you have set yourself up for all the unseen forces of the Universe to assist in achieving that solution.  When you take action from that place of positive pure energy, from a place of positive alignment with your Creator, you will achieve your solution and other outcomes not yet realized.  Because from this place, the solution is not based on an outcome of someone else changing their behavior.  From this place the solution is based on outcomes that produce harmonious interaction between you and your inner being, which has the greatest cumulative effect to exponentially deliver on that which you truly desire.

How do you know that your action is coming from a place of alignment?  It is non-emotional.  You take action that is not based on anger, fear, resentment, hate, disdain, etc.  You take action based on love, inspiration, compassion, honor, joy, etc.  You take action from the place that best connects with your inner being.  How do you know?  Because it feels good.  The deliberate thought feels good, and the aligned action feels even better.  Just think about this for a second.  When you think about what you don’t want, it doesn’t feel good.  Likewise when you hold your truest desires in your thoughts of what you want, it feels great!  It feels great because that’s the same place where your inner being dwells, from that higher consciousness of love.

When you’re presented with an issue, you have thoughts about the issue, and your inner being has thoughts about that same issue.  If you are not in alignment with your inner being on the subject, your emotions will indicate it to you right away and let you know you’re out of alignment.  DO NOT TAKE ACTION!   Take the time to align yourself with the thoughts of your inner being, again your emotions will let you know when you’re there by how you feel.  Then TAKE ACTION!

Deliberate thinking involves intentionally choosing thoughts that are high in vibrational frequency; thoughts that elevate you energetically, and empower and inspire you.  It involves bringing your whole self into the present moment, engaging with life as it unfolds and realizing, as it unfolds, you have the innate power of influence to make profound changes.

 

What Do You Want???

 Can you readily answer that for me? I asked several friends of mine this question this past week…”what do you want?” What I heard was the equivalent to putting ‘band-aids on bullet wounds.’ It might help stop the bleeding, but the injury is far from healed. “I want a million dollars! I want a big house! I want money to spend endlessly. I want a good job. I want a husband to make me happy. I want the President impeached! I want the Democrats to stop whining! I want the freshest clothes. I want an Xbox ONE (my kids).” I want! I want! I want!

So I rephrased the question. “Minus anything materialistic, or without involving another person, what do you want?” The answers changed to “peace, happiness, joy, civility for humankind.” One person said, “I want God to continue to order my steps. I want to live a purposeful life where my gifts can help as many people as possible.” I heard, “peace of mind” as what someone covets most. Another person said “I want more time.” So I asked a couple of people, “why is it you tell me what you desire most is peace, love and happiness, now, but when I first asked you, the response was more around something material…like a million dollars?” There’s no judgment here, because I’m sure MANY of us have those same answers. But it brings to question, if your first answer to the question is suggestive of something material, are we focused on the ‘wrong’ things, thus NOT attracting our truest desires?

We all know the old saying, “money can’t buy happiness,” but we still want to try it out to see if it’s true or not. LOL. We focus on getting more and more…things. Things have expiration dates. The opposites of material things are long-lasting and forever. The non-tangibles of life that are the foundation of desire; Love, Peace, Joy, Happiness, Compassion, Grace. Fundamentally, most of us would love to have these types of feelings and emotions on a consistent basis. Yet our focus tends to surround thoughts of how to get and gain more material. “How can I work harder to afford the car I want? Once we get that big house, we’re going to be SO happy! If I had a hundred thousand dollars I’d be STRAIGHT!” Yeah…maybe those things are true. But what we focus on expands. And when we are thinking from a space of lack…the ‘lack’ continues to grow.

When we think like, “man! I’d be so happy if I had a hundred grand,” we are basically saying to the Universe, “what I currently have is not enough.” You are setting a path in motion that, supported by your thought and emotion says, “I don’t have enough.” And the Universe is not going to respond with “Oh! he/she doesn’t have enough so let me provide more.” This is the irony of our thought, energy, expectation and focus. The Universe is going to ALIGN with YOUR thought process, energetic vibration, and deliver on your expectation based on your focus. The same goes for EVERYTHING you are thinking, feeling, expecting or focusing on. For example, in our country right now, I hear a lot of people from these imaginary opposite sides, full of emotion about what it is they DON’T want. “I don’t want illegals coming into our country! I don’t want Republicans in office! I don’t want another mass shooting! I want police brutality and murder to stop!” All of this is being said and felt on a very high emotional level and the Universe is looking to align directly with your emotional thought process because of the emotive, vibratory marker that is being sent.

Framing your thoughts to align with your authentic desire simply takes an inverse of the way you’ve been used to thinking, speaking and feeling. For example, I asked my friend, “why do you want a million dollars?” And he said, “because that money would give me more freedom to do what I want.” (band-aid on a bullet wound) I said, “so what you REALLY want is more freedom. And you feel that a million dollars is the means to grant you that freedom.” He agreed. So I offered, “don’t express that you want a million dollars. The better and more aligned communication is to say ‘you desire more freedom.'” Freedom is the intangible. Freedom then becomes a state of mind. The “how” you gain that freedom is then left open to Universal interpretation and the Universe is conspiring to deliver exactly what you desire without boundary or limit.

Another friend told me she “wants Trump out of office!” I said, “okay…why?” She proceeded to share her thoughts about his perceived “hatred and bigotry and his love for perpetuating chaos.” So I offered, “it sounds to me that what you TRULY want is a place with less or no hatred and bigotry without the chaos and a better sense of calm and tolerance for humanity.” She responded, “YES!!! EXACTLY!!!” I laughed and asked her, “well why did you not simply focus on THAT instead of the person who you think is causing all of these things? Because your focus and energy says you would like to attract more of what is currently bugging you into your experience.”

One of the main challenges in our lives is, we are determined to “fix it” or to “make it happen” or to “hustle it up.” This is NOT manifesting desire. That is not how desire is manifested. Desire is manifested, not from the physical aspect, but from the spiritual. It’s not our job to figure out the HOW all the time and “fix it.” That’s not our job. Our job is to express our true and authentic desire. Maintain the focus of that desire. Manage your expectations staying steadfast. Envisioning how your true desire feels, what it looks like, feeling the emotion of that desire being manifested and living within that manifestation. THESE are the ways thoughts become things because the Universe is always aligning with the thoughts, desires, emotions, expectations and focus YOU are emitting. This isn’t about “happy thoughts.” This is about DELIBERATE THOUGHT. Your desire is the catalyst to creation. Deliberate thought is the vehicle to manifestation. So do not spend time and energy on those things you don’t want. Instead, spend time, energy, emotion, focus and expectation on those things you DO want in order for them to become your reality. You will know you’re on the right track when other things, people, circumstances and situations begin to cross your path and you think of them as coincidence. Just know…there is no coincidence. Only purpose. Purpose that aligns with what you are attracting into your life experience.

Create Your Blessings

“Only thing I can attribute it to is God.”  This is a quote from Brendan Kelly during an interview he had after he survived being in his second mass shooting.  He was involved in the Las Vegas shooting that happened last year and survived and now has just recently survived the Thousand Oaks shooting two weeks ago. Amazing!  Stroke of luck?  Blessed?  Or a lot of both?

Certainly, if you subscribe yourself as a believer in God, then you would say that Kelly was blessed by all spiritual standards, as he himself spoke of attributing his survival to God.  Some would definitely say it was through God’s grace and mercy that he was not killed like many others that were in the same place right at that same time.   Does this mean the others who died were not blessed?  And what made God spare Kelly’s life?  Is it the fact that he is such a great human being in God’s eyes that he was saved?  How/why did he experience such “favor”?  Or is he simply an extremely lucky individual?

ser·en·dip·i·ty/ˌserənˈdipədē/  noun

noun: serendipity; plural noun: serendipities

1. the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.

“a fortunate stroke of serendipity”

bless·ing; /ˈblesiNG/

noun

noun: blessing; plural noun: blessings

1. God’s favor and protection.

Throughout the years, I, like many others, tended to discount terms like luck, chance, coincidence, or serendipity as blasphemous or un-Godlike, as if the Source of all creation can’t provide you with a stroke of luck or tremendous great fortune.  Luck and chance are just as much part of God as anything else.  There’s no part of creation that the Source of everything is not a part of.

Two teams playing for the championship ball game ‘praying’ for the same outcome, with tremendous fervor.  The ball bounces off the rim, off the back board 3 times, then drops through the hoop for the buzzer beater winning score.  Or the kicker kicks the football, it hits the upright, and bangs through for the winning point in a double overtime game.  Was this a blessing, luck, chance occurrence, or fluke?   If you asked the fans and the team that won the game, that prayed for victory, they would say they were blessed.

Of course none of these scenarios are a matter of life or death, and I think that we could all agree that God cares not about the outcomes of any ball games or wars either for that matter.  However, when it comes to more serious matters, particularly someone escaping a death situation, we tend to certainly call these “blessings”.  He survived cancer, he’s so blessed.  Her surgery was a success, God blessed her.   This is because as a society we see death and dying as something of tragic end, especially if it appears to have happened prematurely.  So, Brendan Kelly’s situation was blessing, while Lebron James just hit the lucky shot.  Or maybe he too was blessed to receive such luck?

“Tragic death,” as we see it, is tragic because of the “how” when it happens. It’s not as “tragic” when it’s a person who passes away from “natural causes” at the age of 100 years. But we certainly see the tragedy when there is a child shot down in a mass shooting at the age of 7. And as heinous, as criminal, as tragic as this looks and feels…it is certainly a part of an overall order of things. That doesn’t mean we skip along in happiness and chalk it up to “it’s just something that happened.” But what it means is, we can put “tragedy” into context, knowing all things happen on purpose and as they are supposed to. THIS is having all faith and peace with God. THIS is having the understanding of why things happen the way they do. And at the same time, God has empowered us to create blessings when we have this type of understanding. Empowered us to create blessings through our alignment, through our faith and through our expectation.

We tend to put our good fortune into the hands of a fickle fate.  Meaning we feel blessed and special when things go well and cursed and forgotten when things go wrong.  When things don’t go the way you want them to, whether large or small, we don’t say that we weren’t blessed.  Unfortunate maybe, or too bad, so sad etc.  But God, the source of all things, is in it all.  Source is a part of the all in all- misfortunes, chances, serendipity, blessings.  Source is at the center of all of it.  And through our own vibrational output, we can increase and/or decrease the “chances” of having huge misfortunes, or tremendous blessings.  And oftentimes what we see as “bad”, God doesn’t see it like that at all.  Life is happening, cycles are taking place, all the time.  New life comes in, while existing life transcends, and everything in the middle is also part of the cycle.

Aligned Blessings

The Universe works in Divine order governed by certain laws and principles.  When we act in accordance with the laws and principles, we receive the benefit of attracting what we desire into our lives (blessings).  When we act out of accordance with the laws and principles we attract things that we don’t desire into our lives

When you are aligned with vibrations that support your highest self, then you manifest your highest and best outcomes in many forms – which can look a little like something outside of yourself bestowing something of good upon you.

You’ve heard us talk much about being in vibrational alignment with your inner being.  This alignment creates the greatest amount of leverage for you to receive blessings, luck, or whatever you wish to call it.  When you’re in alignment with the highest part of yourself, you set yourself up to coincide, through attraction, with the highest part of the Universe.  Coincidences are merely two things coinciding at once, appearing to have no connection.  There is nothing inherently wrong with a coincidence, and coincidences do not discount God and/or reason.  And when you are functioning at your highest vibrational alignment there are bound to be tons of “coincidences” occurring all around you, all the time- FAVOR!  Your highest and most continuous favor comes from your own energy vibrational alignment, and willingness to care about how you feel, whereas to attract more things to feel good about.

So does blessing and luck have anything to do with each other? Not if we think that luck has nothing to do with God. But if we see God, the Source of all, as a giver of luck or blessings, then the two can be closely related.

Why was Brendan Kelly witness and a part of two mass shootings yet lived to tell the tale of them both? Luck? Favor? Bredan’s expectation? Who knows! But the fact is, he lived and witnessed others “die.” We never know how those situations and circumstances that surround those acts have and will affect others around him, the people he has and will touch, influence, direct, etc. The same goes for those who did not survive. Their lives, while they lived and those affected in their death alters and creates something new. We will never know all of the thousands even millions of new outcomes that have been created by what has transpired. But it all facilitates growth and expansion. It is ALL part of a larger Universal symphony, operating in order although we perceive it as chaos.

 

 

What’s the Silver Bullet???

  Someone recently asked me, “how is it that you remain so positive and upbeat all the time??? Especially with all the crazy stuff happening in the world and our country?” I told them, “there is no secret sauce or magic pixie dust or silver bullet. Many times, I am ACTIVELY engaged with myself in an effort to maintain my alignment. THAT’S where the sauce, dust and bullet reside. Within me! And MY desire to create and control my reality.” And that is all truth. Living deliberately is another way to put it. I wake up with a desire to deliberately have a great day. EVERY day. That is my intention. That is my focus. That is my desire. I make it known to the Universe when I get out of bed. And throughout the day, as things come up, as they do, I work to remain AWARE of what I decided when I woke up. But there is certainly more to it than that.

My friend says to me, “but shit happens.” Well…yeah…stuff DOES happen. The trick is understanding our positive intentions are not going to necessarily stop “shit” from happening. It’s what we choose to DO with the “shit” that determines if we maintain our alignment or not. It’s not about stopping things from happening that we perceive as “bad” in our lives. But it’s about navigating our emotions, our desires and intentions through the things that are happening around us so we maintain our emotional power and don’t become overpowered by the situation around us. And that decision of a situation having “power” over us is determined by us as individuals.

So my friend asks, “but aren’t you affected by stuff? Don’t you get upset about things? Aren’t you angry about this or that?” And my response is, “well, yeah. I’m human. But I’m a spiritual being FIRST. Therefore, I understand that any and everything outside of my spiritual existence is temporal. It’s not going to last forever. Not even a little bit.” While I am affected by things that are seemingly sporadic, chaotic, unintentional, etc. I continue to learn how to put those things into perspective and in context. When we can adjust our perspective and create context, we have gained spiritual control over that thing whatever the situation.

My friend, “but you can’t tell me you’ve got all this stuff figured out and it simply rolls off your back because you have given it ‘context’ and therefore you’re not affected. I’ve seen you angry, depressed, upset, etc. so are you being hypocritical? Or you just living in some fantasy land with what you’re saying?” Not at all. We all have plans, desires, objectives, goals and the like. That doesn’t mean you don’t get knocked off track by life from time to time. But the major thing to remember is…THIS IS ALL TEMPORAL. So there is no need to over react to anything. Ever. So I told my friend, “oh yes, I get angry, depressed, upset and all of that. But my key is being AWARE. Being aware of what I feel. Which most of us are acutely aware of what we are feeling when we are feeling it. But awareness is more than that. Awareness is understanding WHY you feel that way. And not just the ‘why’ of “because my husband made me mad! and that’s why I feel the way I do.” But deeper than that. Ask yourself why, over and over again until you get to the root of your emotion. This is a tough exercise, trust me. The next time you are angry, upset or experience any other emotion other than what you want to feel…ask yourself ‘why’ at least five times. Most situations won’t allow you to get past 3 why’s. But once you are at the root of why your emotion is what it is…you have put it into context. Once you have context, you can pivot your emotion to the next level emotion of what you TRULY desire to feel.

I explained this to my friend and he was a bit confused so I told him more plainly. I told him, “when you are angry. Ask yourself, why? My wife made me angry. Why? Because she spoke to me the wrong way. Why? Because she thought things should go a different way. Why? Probably because we weren’t clear with each other. Why? Well, maybe because I wanted it one way or perhaps because I only heard what I wanted to hear. Okay. So now, you have context and can choose which way you want to go from here. OR you can stay angry. What emotion do you DESIRE to feel now that you’ve gotten to the root of your emotion?” My friend understood at that point. This is what being ACTIVELY engaged with yourself to maintain your alignment means.

“But what about those things that are out of your control when they happen that don’t have anything to do with another person per se?” In these cases, I explained, “it is still important to understand the root of your emotion. Especially if you desire to manifest a new emotion. Once you’ve identified what you truly feel then you have put your emotion into context. Once you have context, you have power. Without context, our emotions can run rampant because they are unbridled. Context puts the bridle on the emotion and allows you to steer them whichever way you want them to go.

But, it is still understood it’s difficult for us to go from angry to extreme joy. This is an exercise. That exercise is deciding what the next level up is from anger for you. Is it melancholy? Is it discontent? Is it irritation? Whatever the next level up emotion is for you, choose THAT in your moment of emotional clarity once you’ve identified the root. “How do you do that?” Once the emotion is in context, identify what you are grateful for in the midst of the situation. NO MATTER the situation! What is at least ONE thing you are grateful for in that situation? This will move you from where you currently stand emotionally to the next level up. So you go from angry to discontent. Then you go from discontent to indifferent. Then you go from indifferent to content. Then you go from content to happy. Then you go from happy to joyous. And your joyousness becomes contagious and begins to affect your reality and the people around you in positive ways to the point where they ask you, “how is it that you remain so positive and upbeat all the time??? Especially with all the crazy stuff happening in the world and our country?”

It takes time and active engagement with yourself. Be aware of what is happening. Be aware of your emotion and why you feel what you do. As you continue to grow, your awareness will also grow so you can head off the negative feelings at the pass before they go too far. Don’t expect the same old outcomes. We have the power to create new and unexpected outcomes. Unexpected from the people around you. Deliberately created BY you.

 

Keeping THE Commitment

We live in a society full of commitments.  We make commitments to our careers, to our loved ones, our children, commitments to losing weight, eliminating bad habits, etc.  Our lives are full to the rim with commitments.  Today we’d like to briefly discuss how to honor THE most important commitment, and when/how to break a commitment when it no longer serves your purpose.

For the purpose here, we will use promise/agreement/commitment all interchangeably.

Most of us were imprinted at birth that we are always to keep our commitments, no matter what.  I am very big on keeping commitments and have taken it very personal when someone broke their commitment to me, when I’ve broken a promise to another, or when I’ve not maintained my own agreement made to myself.

Without providing a specific definition to the word, we can agree that commitment usually means a dedication of yourself to something or someone.  A commitment is a promise to do something or not to do something.  But what happens when the promise you made no longer agrees with who you are as person?  What do you do when a commitment you made no longer feels right?  No longer aligns with your spirit. No longer fits with who you are?

For many this is a touchy subject.  Because again, it has been so ingrained in us as a society that we must keep our word at all costs- no matter what.   But you when you begin to evolve and start paying more attention to your own inner guidance and start listening more to your higher self, you realize that sometimes, maybe more often than not, the best thing to do is break the  commitment.

We’ll just make the statement outright here and now, THE most important commitment you can keep is your commitment to yourself.  And likewise, THE most detrimental commitment you can break is also your commitment to you. Now when we say commitment to yourself, we do not mean in a selfish/egotistical type of way (although we are proponents of selfishness).  We mean commitment to your inner being, who always knows what’s best for you, commitment to your own alignment and keeping promises that align with your “who” and what you are as a person, as an evolving, ever-changing human being.

If you are a person who spends time on personal and spiritual growth and development, you know, like I do, that sometimes we outgrow old commitments.  We reach points where it’s clear that the original promise or agreement no longer makes sense.  So, what most of us do is we try to subvert the NEW awareness and keep on with the “commitment” that we made.  How tragic is this- to be spiritually and vibrationally connected, come to new awareness based on new wants and desires, but be bound by the fact that you made a commitment, and God forbid you want to do something else!  So instead of pursuing the new course that feels the best, and most aligned with the new you, we simply stay the course we’re on for promise sake.

There are some questions to ask yourself when contemplating breaking a commitment that no longer serves you:

Why did you commit in the first place?  Ask yourself why you made this commitment.  Was it out of fear?  Misguided loyalty?  Were you trying to please someone else? (which occurs most of the time)  But most importantly- Is this commitment in alignment with who I am and what I want now?  If the answer is yes, then it’s simply a matter of recommitting and refocusing all energy in the direction of the commitment.  If the answer is no, it might be time to reconsider the commitment, keeping in mind that you do yourself and others the greatest disservice ever by keeping a commitment that no longer lines up with who you are. Because then you are not able to truly give your true, authentic self and will always be in a state of discontent, knowing innately this is not the right course.

Of course, there are times where there’s a lot at stake.  Sometimes credibility and reliability become questionable.  Breaking a commitment to take out the garage is not nearly as consequential to breaking a commitment made to your boss, husband, friend, or children.  It takes a tremendous amount of courage and self-awareness to know when it’s time to make a change and make it.  No one wants to involve themselves with a person who’s liable to break their commitment. But I think it’s more important to always stay truest to yourself, not as a cop out to simply do whatever you want to do whenever you want to do it. But rather a sincere awareness of self and what’s the best decision for YOU that keeps you in alignment with your inner-being.

 

 

 

What’s In the Power of Loving Yourself?

  There is so much power in loving yourself. But for whatever reasons, sometimes we veer away from this space. Perhaps we’ve been taught to put others first. Or that loving yourself is selfish. And that’s exactly right! Loving yourself IS selfish! It’s the best kind of selfish and we should be as selfish as possible! Because loving yourself…selfishly…creates an understanding of how to love others unconditionally.

I know a man who struggles with infidelity. He says he’s “happy” with his current relationship. But he still strays quite often. So I asked him one day, completely without judgment in mind, “hey man, why do you do that? What makes you go out, talk to women and then try to sleep with them when you already have a woman who is dedicated to you?” The answers he gave me were things like, “because she doesn’t do what I want her to do at home. She doesn’t make me laugh any more. She doesn’t romance me like she used to. She doesn’t give me the attention I want or deserve.” When he was done, I told him how many times he’d used the word “she.” I said to him, “when I asked YOU why YOU do what YOU do, you offered me several things on what SHE does or doesn’t do. So do you think the issue is really with HER? Or with YOU?” My friend did not readily accept what I was suggesting which was the “problem” is not with her…but with him. (we use parenthesis with “problem” because there is no real problem, only perception and what we choose to do with it) But the point is, the underlying challenge is not with the other person…it is with his lack of true and authentic love for himself. It is no one else’s job to make YOU happy. That job lies strictly from within.

When I was in the 6th grade there was a bully in my class. I won’t call his name because I still know him and we’re connected on social media. I won’t call his name, not because I am afraid of this “bully” lol…but because I am compassionate. He would terrorize me daily. He as an instigator. He was much bigger than I was and I was honestly not confident with who I was at the time. I dreaded seeing him at lunch or at recess because I knew he found pleasure in harassing me. He would push me or look to embarrass me in front of groups of people. But if it were he and I alone, he’d want to be like normal friends. What I understand now…while he was looking to hurt ME…it was HIM that was the one hurting.

I know another lady who constantly lives with self-doubt. She does well at her job, her coworkers seem to like her well enough and she holds a mid-level executive position. However, she is constantly touting who she is, what she can do, how smart she is, what she’s accomplished, etc. to anyone who will listen. She comes off as narcissistic, egotistical and self-absorbed. So I asked her, “why do you constantly feel the need to basically share your entire resume with people when you meet them? Why do you feel the need to talk about yourself and your accomplishments constantly?” And she responded with “because you constantly have to sell yourself so people know your worth!” At that moment, my heart went out to her.

So here is where we want to demonstrate What’s In the Power of Loving Yourself.  First off, it’s okay. It’s okay to love yourself. To truly…love YOU. It’s okay to take care of YOU, pamper YOU, to treat YOU with gentleness, kindness, compassion, acceptance, love…it is okay. It’s okay to put yourself first. It’s okay to stop…and think about what YOU want out of any given situation or circumstance and act accordingly. It. Is. Okay. It’s okay to shield yourself from outside negativity that comes to you in the form of a friend or family member. You are not OBLIGATED simply because you are in those relationships to be an empath for negativity. It’s okay to NOT be that person, in the name of protecting YOU. It’s okay. This doesn’t mean you cut people off with a “talk-to-the-hand” mentality. It simply means it’s okay to protect yourself from feelings, emotions, situations and circumstances that do not align with YOUR happiness. Is that being selfish? YES! And it’s OKAY to be selfish!

When we love ourselves, unconditionally, our first minds are to treat our bodies, our minds and our souls as we would an infant child. If you have had an infant child or been around one, we are gentle. We are loving. We are careful. We watch what we say, we check our tone, we open ourselves up to love, compassion and grace. THIS is the way we should treat ourselves. Gently. Without judgment. In compassion. With love. We should love ourselves and protect ourselves from what may harm us, not only physically, but mentally and spiritually as well. In the first example of my friend who is a womanizer, (hate giving people labels but this is for context), he does not fully love HIMSELF. Ladies…THAT’S why men cheat, fyi.

There is a part of him that is not being attended to that causes him to cheat. NOT the part he thinks should be attended to by his mate. But the part not being attended to by and for himself. When we (men AND women) love OURSELVES to the core of our true being…we learn how to appreciate and love a woman at the core of HER being and not just the surface of her body.

When it comes to my bully “friend,” there was and probably still is a part of him that is not being attended to. He was looking for acceptance. He was looking for acceptance because he didn’t accept HIMSELF for who he was. He didn’t like himself. He was levying judgment against himself for not being enough. Therefore, he looked to gain acceptance from others by portraying some tough, bully-like persona. When we accept OURSELVES, without judgment, with love, with compassion, with grace…we find true acceptance within ourselves and it doesn’t matter what others think about us.

Regarding my narcissistic friend, she too feels inadequate. She feels less than. And that’s why she makes it a point to broadcast her accomplishments to “justify her value” to people who, in the bigger scheme of life, don’t even matter. Our journey  is dictated by what we desire, intend and expect. Not by other peoples’ perceptions of the facade we create. She is missing the simple acceptance of who she is while also not loving herself to know that she is enough…just as she is.

When we truly and honestly love ourselves to the core of our being, we accept who we are. We love who we are. We take good care of who we are. Be gentle with yourself, the same as you would with an infant child. You wouldn’t levy judgment against a baby. You wouldn’t speak harshly or berate them. Instead, we are compassionate, loving, caring and affectionate with them. Be THAT same person with yourself. Protect yourself. Keep yourself out of harm’s way. Be concerned about what you read, what you watch and who you surround yourself with. Be gentle with yourself and stop punishing yourself for things you’ve done or decisions you’ve made. Love you for ALL of you. Unconditionally.  With FULL acceptance. And then you will love others in the same way.

Expect the Best!

And only the best!!

How many of us try to live by this philosophy?  I remember a short time ago, my motto was, “Hope for the best, but plan for the worst.”  Which obviously meant I was expecting the worst. This was based on conventional thinking that said, “whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.”

There are different schools of thought regarding expectation.  Some say, we should let go of expectations and enjoy the journey with no real attachments or assumptions as to the outcome.  While others say, we should expect exactly what it is we want and look for nothing less.

The fact of the matter is, you DO have expectations- all day every day.  You simply can not get around that.  You expect the sun to shine, you expect to have fresh running water, you expect good transportation, you expect your local store to stock an abundance of food. You’ve come to expect certain behaviors from others like your children, spouses, bosses, etc.  You have expectations all-the-time. You’ve come to expect things mainly because you’ve always had them.  But how can you expect something that you haven’t seen the evidence of?  Or more so, how can you expect something that you actually have seen evidence of its opposite?  We are here to discuss ways to channel your expectations.  Redesign them if you will, to create greater leverage towards empowerment.

It’s a very peculiar thing when you think about it. Because the way it works is that you have a primary thought and belief about something, and the Universe provides you evidence to support that thought/belief.  So then you think, as it appears to be true, that you had the experience first which led you to believe a certain thing, which obviously led to you having certain expectations around that thing.  But in reality you created the experience through your thoughts. Emotions, beliefs, and expectations.  The Universe simply echoed that which you projected externally.  But what we want to share with you is how to positively expect the unseen.  How to expect that, which in its immediate observation, is something different than what you want, by focusing the power to project positive expectations towards what it is that you DO want- AND GET IT!  We want to share with you how to change your expectations to positively effect everything around you and everything you come in contact with.

So how does it work?

Expectations come from the context of what’s being observed, previous experiences and mostly what has happened recently and repetitively.  When a decision is made as to which expected event is chosen, we tend to “see” things literally, based on our expectation. This is part of the equation of how it is you go about creating your own realty and how it is we turn thoughts into things.  Your expectation colors and shapes your reality.  What you expect to see, is what you generally tend to see.  Some will say, “No, I didn’t have an expectation of anything, and this bad thing just happened.”  Well, we know that is not how it works from a Universal Law perspective.

If you have spent any time at all following Align To Enlighten, then you know that it is your thoughts and accompanying emotions that contain manifesting power. This is because that’s all the Universe can hear, it doesn’t hear your words or speak our vocal language – but rather interprets the vibration that comes from your thoughts and emotions AND your intention and expectation.

So here’s how to use expectation for your greater good and to change your own reality towards desired things you want.

1. Understand what expectation is. That it is more than words.  Expectation is indeed a force, just like belief, just like intention.  As matter of fact, they all go hand and hand. And in understanding first and foremost that expectation is a force, always in action, whether you use it deliberately or not, always available whether you choose to consciously use it or not, you can now CHOOSE to exercise deliberate intention to use expectation to your advantage.
2. Understand that you can’t cheat expectation. In other words, you can’t fake like you’re expecting something that you’re really not.  Expectation is directly tied to your belief.  You can not expect other than what you believe to be true, usually.  So you can’t really “fake it til you make it”, in regards to expectation.  Your expectation has to come from a place of truth and complete authenticity.
3. Start today choosing to expect the best in every situation. This requires a shift in paradigm.  Because as previously stated you can’t just start expecting something you don’t believe to be true.  Start simply by training your mind onto good thoughts by developing a strong focus, awareness, and thinking about things that make you happy and that make you smile when you think of them. Don’t give your attention to anything unwanted. If you catch yourself thinking a thought unwanted, simply shake your head and let the thought dissipate or say out loud ‘switch’ or what I like to use, ‘chill’ to signify a mental change is required. Keep saying things like, “I know this is going to work out for the best,” or “I know I will turn this situation to my advantage somehow,” or “I expect the best and the best always comes to me!
4. Avoid negative talk like the plague (BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY). By “negative talk” we mean complaining, arguing, being miserable or feeling fearful and powerless – anything that drags down your emotions and contradicts your positive expectations. Limit the amount of time you spend with negative people as much as people. (We are assuming that you are not one of those people yourself lol).  Some people are easy to complain with than others, do your best to avoid conversations with these people and spend more time feeling positive and spending your time with positive people.
5. KNOW that your expectation will come true. You may wonder how to “know” when you really don’t know yet! If it hasn’t happened yet, how can you be sure it will? This type of knowing is based solely on a generality. It is not so much that you know what you are expecting specifically will happen (although it can and most often will).  It means more a general knowing that the feeling you’re seeking will take place.  That you will feel exactly what you hoped to feel from the expected experience.   Because remember, the only reason you want anything ever, is because of how you think you’re going to feel in having it.  You must CHOOSE to know, that come what may, even if what you expected did not occur specifically, that ALL IS WELL.  And that your general expectation is one of THAT knowing- that all is well, and everything is always working out for my greater good, and that everything is for a greater purpose.   It might take some time to get comfortable with this, but once you do, it becomes a lot easier. In order to really know, you’re going to have to completely banish doubt and disbelief from your mind. When they pop up, simply push them out of your mind (SWITCH), and affirm again that you KNOW your expectation will happen. Expectation of what?  WELL-BEING, joy, satisfaction, No exception!. The only way to master this is through practice.

 

Don’t Forget About the Children…Be One…

Do you remember the innocence of your childhood? It doesn’t matter what your socioeconomic status may have been; rich, poor, middle class, whatever the label. We were children. Children with ideas, thoughts, dreams, unbounded potential and high expectations. School days lasted “forever.” But so did Saturdays when we played outside all day long. Time “stood still.”

As children, we lived without limits. Without boundaries. Everything was possible. Our “wealth” came from family and friends. The love was abundant. The compassion overflowing. The kindness, plentiful. This is not to say, “those were the good old days.” Or, “remember how it used to be so much better???” Or, “I wish we could go back to the way things used to be!” None of those statements are the answer. We have the ability to create the “good old days” right now.

Time “stood still” when we were children, primarily because, we didn’t focus on time. In fact, in this vast and infinite Universe we live in, time does not actually exist. Time is a man-made construct that we created in an effort to capture moments. But moments are fleeting. Therefore we feel time is fleeting and we say things like, “it’s October ALREADY!” as if the months have somehow sped up since we last checked. We have imprisoned ourselves and have become slaves to something we created. Is there time in Heaven, Hell, paradise, purgatory? Is there time in deep space? No. Time on earth is calculated and represented, based on our rotation around the sun. But we apply it to all things as if it’s truth. Time is a burden. Once you understand the context of what time actually is…you release yourself of that burden and immediately find happiness within the moment. When we are continually looking for better things in a future that hasn’t happened yet, we miss the moment in front of us. And when it’s gone, we wonder how we missed it. “It’s already the end of the year!” (for more on this, please see, Time Is An Illusion, July, 2018)

But as children, we took the moment and lived every second of it. Time stood still because our expectations of tomorrow, next week, next month, next year were so completely far away because we were in, that, moment. And when we thought of the future, it was bright because we didn’t have a reference point to judge what that may look like based on past experience. The possibilities were vast. Then we got older, experienced more, and then decided what the next moment would be, NOT because we were actively creating it, but because we based it on past experience as opposed to what we desire to create in that moment with the infinite possibilities available. This is why time seems to be fleeting. We are anticipating the next moment, predicting it and creating it based on what we THINK because we’ve “seen this movie before and we know how it ends.”

Many of us adults, could learn so much from a child’s mentality. When a child believes something is possible, it becomes a truth. When a child LOVES…that love does not come with a disclaimer. (if you do “this” then I won’t love you any more) When children are on a playground and someone else wants to join in, for the most part, the other person is welcomed to join. Young kids on a playground don’t segregate or discriminate, unless they were taught by an adult. In all of these scenarios, children step out on the path to joy, happiness, abundance, peace and respect. There is an EXPECTATION in them to receive these things. ADULTS teach them otherwise. Sometimes we teach an expectation of disappointment in an effort to protect kids from it. “No Johnny, don’t do that because it may not work out like you think.” It’s the fact that Johnny THINKS it WILL work out as to why his parent should encourage him to do it. Things…are manifested from thought, expectation and belief.

As adults, in today’s world, we seem to be preoccupied with so many things outside of our children and our childlike mentality. So many of us are completely emotionally charged on so many challenges we face: Stress on the job, our Political climate (Republican vs. Democrat), the president, #metoo, Black Lives Matter, police brutality, the economy, our daily commute, etc. But are we forgetting who we once were and what that means??? Are we caught up in the wake of perceived chaos, floundering in anger, fighting to the death for a cause, debating our political views, furthering our careers…all while losing our true selves?

As we are caught up in the various perceived challenges of this life, we lose sight of the foundation that guides all that will happen next…the moment and what we decide to do with it. Teach our children or should I say LEARN from them that our dreams are where our realities come from. Teach our children and remind yourself to embrace dreams, visions and expectations. Do not stifle them, or yourself, based on YOUR experiences from YOUR past. Release that which has held you back. If you “know how this movie ends” and you are basing your thoughts, actions, and next steps from that, then open yourself to the possibility of new and brighter outcomes. Do it without boundaries or limitations like a child would.

Reclaim some of the elements of your childhood. EXPECT Santa Claus to show up! JK, but seriously, expect wonderful things to happen in your life. What good does the alternative bring you? Give LOVE freely and to all. What reason do you have not to? “Because some people don’t deserve it,” a friend told me. Really? If this is the way you feel, then love is exactly what you should be giving in that scenario. It will free YOU by doing so. Invite others into your life experience. Do something out of the ordinary. Challenge yourself. Challenge the self-inflicted boundaries that hold you back. Be accepting. Wake up happy. Explore. Be inspired! Have fun. Live in the moment and LOVE the moment! Don’t wait until quitting time, or the weekend or until the holidays or until your vacation to be happy. Find the happiness, joy, expectation and anticipation you had as a child. And foster THAT same behavior in your children today. They know how to live life happily ever after.

Escaping the Collective Consciousness

Belief is one of the most, if not THE most powerful forces that exists.  What you believe shapes everything – your expectation, your outlook on life- the lens out of which you see everything through, your choices and decisions, and certainly your perception.  All these things have their root in your belief system.  Your reality, your current state of being, is significantly impacted by your belief.  This is why smart parents try to instill in their children very early on certain beliefs about who they are and what they can be in life. They understand the lasting effects.

It never ceases to amaze me that you can believe something to be true, whether it is or isn’t, and it will become true for you.  You can actually believe something INTO truth.  For example, I have a friend, that every time it rains, and she doesn’t have anything to cover her head, she gets sick.  So, when it’s cloudy, she’ll make statements like, “I better get home before this rain catches me.  I don’t want to be sick.”  She has a belief and expectation that the rain on her head causes her illness – every time.  And of course, the Universe being the cooperative component that it is, obliges her every single time it rains and her head isn’t covered.

In the above dialogue, we’re referencing individual or singular belief power/consciousness.  However, just as it is with any other force of power where there is a collective number – the power is even greater.  For the purpose of this discussion we’ll call collective consciousness a collective energy which is created, and vibrational frequency generated as a result of the combined or collective individual thought processes and beliefs.

Just as one individual has the power to believe something not tangible into something tangible, so it is much more so with collective consciousness.  Just as your individual thoughts, beliefs, emotions and actions mirror perfectly what you experience in your life, it is the collective thought, belief, emotion and actions of the ~ 7 billion individuals around the world which collectively join to create the various events, conditions and circumstances in the world on a much broader scale. It is this pool of collective thought patterns and beliefs that determines worldwide occurrences such as wars, homelessness, poverty, love, hatred, gender inequalities, classism, and yes racism.  We can argue that even natural disasters are a result of the metaphysical manifesting into the physical.

We give it all meaning-

It is us, we are the ones, the masses of living human beings, that give meaning to any and everything- EVERYTHING!

The collective belief for a very long time was that the Earth was flat until one individual challenged that notion.

The collective belief for a long time also was that you couldn’t run a mile in under 4 minutes.  It was thought to be humanly impossible until Roger Bannister came along.

If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?  The answer is no, it does not, UNLESS there is someone there to interpret sound.  We are the perceivers of all there is.  Things are because we say they are, as individuals and as a collective.  It’s almost as saying things don’t exist unless we say they do, and thus give it our attention.  I know how this may sound, but think about it.  Whether it’s deciding that a piece of paper with a government seal on it has a particular value or exchanging with material goods is more valuable.  We are the deciders.

Don’t stand at the buffet and complain- 

So just like you wouldn’t stand at a buffet in a restaurant and complain about what you don’t want, you would simply focus your desires on the cabbage and NOT the broccoli, the same holds true when faced with things in your personal and in our collective lives.  This world is like that buffet.  We can choose something else.  It may not appear to be that way, standing smack dab in the face of a situation.  But even then, most importantly then, we absolutely can choose another belief and thought pattern that is closer and more in alignment with our ultimate and true desires.

What do you want?

My friend has a beautiful daughter who often, as children do, tends to wine and moan when she wants something or doesn’t want something.  One day when the daughter was having an episode of discomfort and irritability, I heard the mother say, “What do you want, tell me what it is you want?”  And the child said whatever it was she wanted and of course she was granted her desires.  This is how the Universe responds to us.  Of course there are other variables, but the point is, instead of complaining and moaning in regards to what we don’t want, why not state clearly what it is that we DO want.   The Universe is hearing our complaints and moans and is saying, “what do you want, tell me what it is you want.”  But as a collective consciousness we’re seeing things in the world taking place and settling in on disgust, angst, resentment, fury, bitterness, etc.  Never, ever, settling in on what it is we truly desire, and thus the results and outcomes never change.

The New Paradigm- 

So here’s a shift in thought pattern.  Instead of looking at something unwanted and allowing ourselves to feel long-lasting negative emotion, let’s take the time to feel what we need to feel for a brief moment, and as quickly as possible, get right to the thoughts and feelings that feel better.

So what is the best way to contribute as individuals to change or improve on what we perceive as chaotic conditions in the world?

• Understand and accept the fact that we are powerful creators and have tremendous influence on our lives and the environment we live in.
• When you see something you don’t desire- DON’T STAY THERE- Keep focus placed on your specific and desired outcome.  (Act like your at a buffet)
• When you speak, try hard, give it all you have, to speak only of what you want in any circumstance, and very little if any discussion of what you don’t want.
• Become conscious of what it is that you are creating – look around you – what are you manifesting and how are you feeling mostly.  This will be your two greatest indicators as to what you’re personally creating and what you are indirectly contributing to the collective body.
• Develop an attitude of gratitude and appreciation, understanding that the process of creation is ALWAYS perfect and precise, that everything is unfolding perfectly based on the energy and vibrational frequency that is being emitted which represents where the collective thought patterns and beliefs are.

Contrary to what we’ve been taught to “believe,” one person can make a huge difference how we live in this world as a society.  When you raise the quality of YOUR thinking and remove limiting beliefs that don’t serve you well, you are raising the frequency of the energy projected through and by the collective consciousness which MUST raise the frequency of the collective consciousness as a whole, which can only produce better and more positive results in the world.

 

 

 

How to Cure Resentment…

   “As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison” – Nelson Mandela

The definition of resentment is, “bitter indignation at having been treated unfairly.” If you are indignant, you are angered, outraged, annoyed. Are there people in your life or in your past that you “simply can not STAND!” Are there people who make your “skin crawl” every time you see them or hear them speak? Is there a person that “gives you an immediate attitude” when they walk into the room? Are you seeing that person in your mind as you read this? You know EXACTLY who they are don’t you? I know I do. But why do these people command that type of emotional response from us? What is it about that person that unsettles us? And why does this happen? Resentment of course.

We feel that we’ve been wronged, taken advantage of, treated unfairly, spoken to crossly, whatever it is…and we can’t seem to forget it or get past it. And perhaps there is a pattern of behavior that person demonstrates that reinforces the underlying resentment you feel. And we often times are “okay” with holding onto these feelings, these patterns, these cycles. We accept the resentment. But what are we truly accepting? When we accept resentment, we are accepting chaos, turmoil, resistance, and discontent. Furthermore, resentment perpetuates unhappiness. Is ‘unhappy’ how you truly want to feel? Doubtful. So what’s our recourse? We can avoid these people. We can divorce them. We can separate ourselves from them. But here’s what’s funny: getting rid of the person you are resentful towards does not relieve you of your resentment. It is still there. Affecting YOU while the other person goes on about their life.

In order to move forward to be truly “free,” we must acknowledge what we feel and make a conscious choice to release our resentment. Our feelings, our emotions are our own. No one else’s. They are ours to command and do with as we please. Our thoughts, feelings, emotions and expectations create our circumstances and situations. They create a vibrational marker the Universe is constantly responding to. The stronger the feeling, emotion and expectation, the stronger the marker. This is how things are manifested. Therefore, when we understand the type of life we want to live, the type of character we want to demonstrate and the person we are or want to be, it is important not to cloud the path along our journey with continuous feelings of hatred, discontent and resentment. Not for ourselves and not for anyone else.

• Explore – Explore your mind to uncover why you still harbor those feelings of resentment. So many times we are holding onto grudges and negative energy not even remembering why we feel the way we do. Ask yourself why you feel that way about the person. Is the answer valid to you? Is it actually affecting you today? Right now this moment? If it is, have you tried to create a different moment? The reason I ask is because if you are not creating a new moment, you are allowing the other person to create your moment for you which you are displaying through your resentment.
•  Why Is It Important? – Whatever someone has said or done to you, why is it important? Don’t get me wrong, we should all protect ourselves from harm. But if you are not physically or emotionally harmed, ask yourself in regards to the person you are resentful towards, “why is it important?” And then realize…YOU command your reality. YOU command your emotion, feeling and expectation which is the fodder used to manifest desire. So WHY IS IT IMPORTANT to hold onto something someone did or said to you which is allowing THEM to create a reality for YOU that you do not want.
• Sincerely Forgive Them – Release it. Ya know, namaste seems to be almost a ‘buzz word’ now days. But the real meaning of namaste, while it is a greeting, is “The Divine Light in Me Sees and Recognizes the Divine Light in You.” Regardless of our actions, and the ills we experience, when we can actually “SEE” someone for who they truly are, another soul along this journey of life, it makes it that much easier to sincerely forgive people. Forgiveness is in our nature. That’s why we feel GOOD when we truly forgive. Release it and you will, in turn, release yourself from the emotional bondage that is holding you back.

There is no need to “get them back” for whatever it is they have done to you. We have been socialized to strike back when attacked. (Again, yes, protect yourself from bodily harm at all times) But that’s not the attack we’re speaking about. We have been socialized to believe when we attack back, we are showing our strength. In true reality, our strength does not come from the physical level. Our true strength comes from within where we command what we desire to feel and manifest the realities we desire to live. Don’t let resentment be the roadblock stopping you from reaching your desired destination. Namaste.

 

Let’s Just Face Reality!

Well, actually let’s NOT do that!  We do not encourage anyone, at any time, for any reason to “face” reality.   No matter how dire the circumstances appear to be.  We are proponents of CREATING reality.  Of course, there are times where we obviously are forced to deal with things that are presented to us in the moment.  But usually by that time, we’ve already missed the opportunity to create.

Over the past couple of weeks, there have been two very hot topics of discussion.  One, Colin Kaepernick’s triumphant win as it may be, where he fought for a cause he felt passionately about, stayed the course, and prevailed so to speak.  The second incident involved Serena Williams’ lost at the U.S. Open where she felt like she was cheated. In both scenarios there were discussions of injustice, inequality, racial and gender disparity, and so on.  When we look at both cases we can see what appears to be obvious unfairness and wrong doing.  But is it really?  Is there anything else we can factor into these equations and others we may personally experience in our own lives that seemingly we have absolutely no control over? Where do we factor nonphysical forces into our lives? Do we have any influence over things that happen to us BEFORE they happen?

We’ve been trained by, well-meaning and sometimes not so well-meaning people, to deal with issues “head on”, by confronting/facing reality or else.  People who refuse to face reality can get a lot of frowns, not to mention the label of being irresponsible.  As a society we just don’t take kindly to people ignoring the facts as they are presented, and dealing with them.

We’ve discussed in our past posts that nothing, absolutely nothing precedes vibration.  Your vibrational marker, your vibrational point of attraction is the basis for which anything and all things are manifested in your life.  You’ve also heard us say frequently that we live in an attraction-based world and Universe.  And how nothing comes to us, except that we attract it on a vibrational level first.

For anyone who is unfamiliar with how this works, simply put, you ask for something by thinking about it.  You ask for something by giving your attention to the subject.  Worrying about something, complaining about something is the same as asking.  Your attention to a thing, whether it be positive or negative is a request.  Sometimes, in fact most all times, we are unaware of where we stand on a particular subject vibrationally, until the subject manifests in our lives in ways that are undesirable.  Then, we give so much negative attention to that subject and the Law of Attraction does its job by providing us more of the same.  This why the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, when it rains it pours, and so on. You always get more of what you give more of your attention to and less of what you give less of your attention to. It happens automatically!  You get what you think about or what matches your thoughts vibrationally, WHETHER YOU WANT IT OR NOT. You can only reel in and have life experiences to that which you are a vibrational match to. 

If we can consider for a second, the fact that everything physical comes from and out of what is non-physical, including but not limited to real life circumstances, situations, and events, we may then be able ask ourselves why are we so focused on the here and now or  the “What Is?”  Why do we give some much credence and so much of our attention to what’s going on right in front of us?  This is because we live in such a physical, see it, touch it, smell it, hear it, taste it environment.  And because we don’t really understand vibration, we discount its power.

Obviously it makes a lot of sense to address life from an action-based, physical standpoint until you come to realize Who You Really Are, a spiritual being having a physical experience, part of the same source of energy that created this world and Universe, born for the purpose of making decisions, coming to your own conclusions about life, and deliberately creating your own reality.

What’s going on right now, in this moment, is really history from a vibrational perspective.  The circumstances in our lives right now and every single condition we’re experiencing now, were created by the thoughts we thought, and thoughts we held and maintained BEFORE.  Does that make sense?  It’s all old news.  It’s all a product of the vibration we had last week, last year, yesterday or an hour ago. Looking at it from this perspective we may be able to understand that what’s happening currently, is only a mere snapshot in time of a vibration that used to be.  So what is, is not such a big deal vibrationally speaking.  Everything is always about creation – where you stand and where you desire to be.

So don’t be dismayed at what is happening now.  Stop facing reality and start creating reality.  Exercise your given power to architect and orchestrate exactly what you want to experience in life. Pre-pave your life by raising your vibration, increasing your immediate impact and influence over all that comes to you.  We attract only who and what we are.  Be love, be giving, be compassion, be joy, and watch your external reality match your internal vibration.

 

 

 

 

The Walking, Talking Dead…Are You a Zombie?

  So, I am a HUGE fan of the shows The Walking Dead and also Fear the Walking Dead. For me, it simply makes for good, mind-numbing entertainment. LOL…not much more to it than that. If you don’t know or are not familiar with the show, the premise is, “something” (we still don’t know what) has happened in our world to change people from being people to being senseless, zombies who’s sole existence is walking around aimlessly. Oh! and if they can get their hands on you, they will eat you alive. It’s what I do when I want to disconnect from everyday life and get my blood pressure up. LOL…

But what was crazy to me the last time I watched the show was the correlation my mind was making with the mindless zombies on the show with actual people in my everyday life. The zombies on the show continuously walk with no plan or direction or thought about what is happening. They are mentally and physically numb to their actual existence. They simply follow along with the other zombies not looking left or right. They have no proactive intentions. (unless it’s eating your brains) They are not doing anything on the show to support any desire because they are numb to it all. The only time there is a change in their behavior is when something stimulates them; a fire, loud noises, seeing an actual living creature they want to eat. Other than some event happening around them, they continue walking in their “living dead” existence…over and over and over again. We get excited, motivated, stimulated from events, circumstances and/or things we see happening in the news. But do we do anything outside of that? Or do we go back to our mind-numbing existences until the next stimulation?

There’s no judgment in that as we can all fall into this same zombie-like state. How many of us are actually living mentally, spiritually and physically proactive? We may say, “well I do! I go to work and provide for my family everyday!” Or, “I wake up with an agenda and a plan everyday! I’m good.” Really? Many of us do excellent jobs at planning for retirement, scheduling vacations or working hard on our jobs. But are you really living life mentally, spiritually and physically proactive? Living life fully aware takes practice. It’s not “hard work.” It’s deliberate work. Living life fully aware is diligently and purposefully CHOOSING thoughts that coincide with your desire. Living life fully aware is being committed to ACTING on the highest levels of your inspiration immediately in that moment. Some people characterize this as “following your gut feelings.” Living fully aware is DECIDING to actively manifest the day, the circumstance and the situation that most aligns with who you truly are. So…how do we learn to live fully aware and abstain from zombie-hood? By learning to live proactively.

LIVING PROACTIVE BASICS

• Who Do You WANT to Be? – Decide what type of person you want to be. No bars. No boundaries. No preconceived notions of who you THINK you are right now. But who or better yet, what type of person would you like to be? More confident? More loving? More passionate? More kind? More giving? By living, acting and speaking in the manner of who you most desire to be as a person, you begin to live a more authentic you. The you that coincides with your deepest desires of authenticity. You have DECIDED to create the reality you desire by being the person you want to be. And if you’re 100% satisfied with who you currently are, decide on how you can share that authenticity on an even higher level with others?
• Align Thought, Word and Deed – The next part about living proactively is paying particular attention to your thoughts, words and deeds. But understand, ALL things begin with a thought. Once we have decided on who it is we want to be, it is important to align our thoughts with that same desire. If I want to be more loving, compassionate, grateful, etc., I must align my thoughts with those same feelings and desires. I would direct my thoughts to focus on love and compassion when that person cuts me off in traffic or says something out of the way to me at work or angers me in my home, if I am to live proactively. I am fully aware of my anger in that moment but I am choosing to offer love and compassion instead. By aligning and commanding thought first…word and deed fall in line next.
• Self-Evaluate but Don’t Self-Desecrate –  Like we said, living life fully aware takes practice. It’s not “hard work.” It’s deliberate work. We are all works in progress. One of the fundamental tenets of living in awareness is self-evaluation. Deciding what type of day you desire in the morning before you leave the house will provide a road map for your day. At the end of the day, review your journey. What twists and turns happened? How did you handle them? Did they align with your morning’s intentions and desires? Why not? What will you do tomorrow to better align with your intentions and desires? Cognitively do this. Daily. And without judgement! Passing judgment against yourself only serves to stifle the process. And most importantly, those thoughts of judgment DO NOT align with your proactive intentions on living in full awareness.

Living mentally, spiritually and physically proactive provides a space for all of us to become fully aware, fully cognitive and fully enlightened. It’s easy to fall into the traps of the routines of everyday life and move through the day like one of the zombies from a fictional television show. Understanding art imitates life, we should strive to become that much more aware, that much more committed and that much more determined to awaken our awareness, align our thoughts and move in a direction that proactively stimulates our existence. Otherwise we operate as mindless zombies…going with the flow.

The Physics of Vibration – Breaking the Cycle

  It works like this- You think a thought, you have a feeling about that thought, you vibrate a frequency, you attract a manifestation.  Simple right?  Kind of, but not really.  More and more people are realizing everyday this paradigm shift that “we create our reality.”   More and more we are coming into the realization or rather actualization of nonphysical power, and that we have more influence over our lives than we’re giving ourselves credit for.  We say things like “perception is realty” for example.  Which is true.  Your perception of a thing matters so greatly.  But you cannot perceive beyond your vibration.

Last week we discussed how every cycle is a circle and how to go about breaking those cycles.   In order to break a cycle, any cycle, you must begin with breaking habits of thought.  It’s been estimated that we have roughly about 50-60 thousand thoughts per day and that of these 50K-60K thoughts we have, most of them are the same thoughts of yesterday and the day before, last week, last year, and so on.  We think the same thoughts over and over, again and again.  So same thoughts generate same vibrations/emotions and produce same attraction of life experience.  You want to break old cycles?  Break old thought patterns.  But how?  How do we begin changing thoughts that have been engrained in us and reinforced through perpetual life events that confirm those thoughts?

Everything vibrates

The third of the seven Hermetic principles is the Law of Vibration, which states “Nothing rests, Everything moves, Everything vibrates.”  This principle happens also to be the foundation to the Law of Attraction.  To understand this, is to understand that everything is energy. And the fact that everything is constantly contributing to everything else.

The Law of Vibration states that everything in the Universe moves and vibrates – everything is vibrating at one speed or another. Nothing rests. Everything you see around you is vibrating at one frequency or another, and so are we.  However, our frequency as human beings, is different from other things in the Universe in that our frequency is generated through thought power.  This is why it seems like you and I are separated from what we see around us; people, animals, plants, trees and so on.  In truth we are not separated – we are in fact living in one big collective consciousness. We are all connected at the lowest level (conversation for another time).

Everything has its own vibrational frequency – the device you’re reading this on – the surface you’re sitting on – the table – the car – the house – the rock – AND most importantly our thoughts and feelings have the strongest vibrational frequency. It is all governed by The Law of Vibration.

HOW TO USE THIS KNOWLEDGE TO YOUR BENEFIT AND MASTER YOUR LIFE

If you can accept that your thoughts and emotions are vibrating ( Law of Vibration) and that “like attracts like” (Law of Attraction) you will appreciate that you can now start to significantly influence and affect your life just by paying more attention your thoughts and emotions, and guiding them with deliberate intention. The challenge comes from the fact that we have been conditioned from childhood to have thoughts and emotions about worry, fear, scarcity, lack, and so on.  If you change these patterns of thought and feelings you can break the cycle and be able to attract into your life more of what you truly want.

If everything is energy- and it is; and everything vibrates- and it does; AND you and I are constantly attracting things into our lives based on this vibrational frequency, then it kind of makes sense to influence that vibration as much as possible.  To break the cycle, we need to break the habitual thought patterns.  How do we think thoughts other than the ones we’ve been thinking forever?  How do we break the cycle of limiting beliefs and limiting perceptions?  The simple answer is figure out how to think NEW thoughts.  One way I do this is through meditation.  One purpose of meditation is to slow down your mind’s activity.  When you purposefully do this, a strange thing often happens.  You begin to have inspiration to do things that you may not have thought before or not recently given any thought about.  Problem is when have these spurts of inspired thought, we discount them almost immediately.  Maybe we perceive them as too far-fetched or impossible for us to achieve or think we don’t have them time to pursue them, etc.  If we would at that moment follow the inspiration no matter how small we THINK it is, we would then receive more and more blocks of inspired thoughts, and new ways of perceiving.

The other thing that works for me in creating new thoughts is traveling.  Smelling different smells, seeing different scenery, hearing different sounds often challenges the brain and you receive new thoughts. New and different experiences, new and different vibration, and a new cycle begins.  You do not necessarily need to physically travel to a far and distant land to experience what I just described.  You can imagine it and reap the same tremendous benefit.  The point is to start the process of thinking new thoughts consistently and on a frequent basis.  You can do this in various ways.

Remember, you can follow the bread crumbs from manifestation back to vibrational frequency back to habits of thought (circle).  Start today challenging yourself to find ways to think new thoughts.  Challenge yourself to do something new and different that forces you to think in ways uncustomary for you.  Come out of your comfort thought zone and see what new manifestations you can generate.

 

Every Cycle is a Circle

  Have you ever thought about what you don’t think about? LOL…like breathing. We don’t consciously THINK about breathing, but it happens. And sometimes we think about the fact that we don’t think about breathing. Thank God we don’t HAVE to think about it constantly in order for it to happen. Otherwise, we may stop breathing altogether. LOL…but what about the things we do in everyday life? Do you actually think about driving to work everyday? Or does it simply happen without your conscious thought? For most of us, when we fall into a routine, it becomes less conscious work for us to complete the tasks associated with those routines. The same happens regarding our thought processes. And sometimes, those thought processes continue to play out in the realities of our lives over and over and over again. The cycles become circles.

We have heard or some of us have lived perpetual, destructive cycles. An extreme example is when children live with abuse in their homes. Sometimes they are destined to perpetuate that cycle of life into adulthood which hinders their relationships. Or on a more subtle level, you “know for a fact that come Monday, I’m going to go to work with a bad case of the ‘grumpies’ because that’s just the way it is.” Or we often times hear people say, or we say regarding other people, I/they are “stuck in their ways.” Well…exactly WHO made it that way? The larger question is, are you happy with who and where you are, by being “stuck in your ways” or would you prefer to be someone else?

While there are cycles of attitude, disposition and character, there are also cycles of circumstance. The great news is, ALL can be adjusted to fit your desire. Do you know of someone who is a perpetual victim? Perhaps a person who perpetually spends money and is always without? Someone who perpetuates drama in every relationship? Or on a happier note, do you know someone who has created a cycle of perpetual happiness? Cycles create circles.

We are designed and created to be in a constant state of growth and development. Our souls and our minds don’t stop growing like our bodies. Our souls and our minds operate in perpetual and infinite growth. Being “stuck in one’s ways,” is a choice. A very real choice that states, “I refuse to learn, grow, self-reflect, assess or be self-aware. I am just me and that’s where I stop.” And fyi, this goes against your authentic being. When we go against who we TRULY are, we do not find happiness. We find disgust, lack of fulfillment, unhappiness and frustration. Recognizing and making an effort to break a cycle you are in is imperative in being spiritually successful. AND it will create a space for personal happiness to grow. But how do we take the first steps to break our cycles? Three steps make it simple:

1. Recognize the Cycle Exists – So often we are destined to continue or repeat our same cycles because we don’t recognize them as being cycles in the first place. They have become so familiar and expected, they become seemingly permanent residents in our psyche. When identifying a cycle, start at the end. The final result you don’t like. Then work your way backward through a string of events that lead to the ending. Do you recognize any patterns from this chain of actions with other or similar situations in your life? Then you’ve successfully identified behaviors that are leading you down a path you do not desire. (don’t judge yourself. only observe)
2. Create Small Goals of Change – If what you’ve identified is an actual cycle or pattern of behavior, you can’t expect to break it overnight. It takes small, calculated, consciousness to begin to break down the walls of your cycle. For example, if you have recognized the cycle of the same argument you have with your spouse when he expresses a particular view on a subject that sends you into emotional orbit, first recognize the events that make it happen. Then, instead of being angry with him because of what he said, DECIDE that you will CHOOSE a different response. A different way to think about it, because you are aware it is happening. But the key is to be sure your response is authentic to YOU. Don’t simply say, “I’m just going to overlook that.” Or, “I’m not gonna let him get to me today.” These statements will only mask what you truly feel. Actually decide. You have identified the cycle. Now you are choosing to feel a different way about it. How? Acknowledge that he has a right to whatever HE chooses to feel, say or do. If what he is saying or doing is hurting you, then choose to be out of that situation. If not, then simply allow him to be in that space without ingesting and feeding your emotions about something you can not control. Practice this on a small scale. At work. At home. With your children, etc. until you begin to feel confident in identifying cycles and creating small changes within yourself to affect the outcome.
3. Define What You Want and Who You Want to Be –  There is nothing actually “wrong” with the person you are right now this moment. But sometimes, we want to be “better” for us. Not for anyone else. We want to grow, prosper, be happy, etc. But many times, we don’t actually believe we can be that person. We set up excuses or we levy judgment, prosecution and sentencing against ourselves regarding who it is we are or can be. Release all of that. EVEN and ESPECIALLY if you are 100% content with yourself and who you are right now. Open yourself to ascending higher. Open yourself to discovering more happiness. Open yourself to a positively, almost unimaginable you with every aspect regarding your being that you desire. As soon as you define who you are and who you want to be, you have given you soul an ultimate objective. If I want to be a good spouse and I have identified a cycle of argument and debate, I have started taking small steps towards breaking the cycle by creating a broader understanding of who I am and where I want to go, and I have also defined the person I want to be…then I have successfully broken that cycle.

When we are unhappy with people, situations, circumstances, etc. we can usually define a pattern or cycle of behavior within ourselves that helps perpetuate that cycle of unhappiness. And since every cycle is a circle, we are destined to relive that same experience over and over again until we break it. Breaking cycles is a proactive process born from an awareness of the cycle, a desire to be/have better and an expectation of that desire to be fulfilled. A cycle is a circle of imprisonment. When we break the undesired cycles in our life experience, we are set free to map a new course to ANY destination we desire.

“I DESERVE better…”

I deserve better!!  Says whom?

Have you ever witnessed something fantastic happen to someone or maybe to yourself that, in your mind, was undeserving?  While yet another person who, again in your mind, had worked harder and gotten far less than what they “deserved?”   We see “good” things happen to “bad” people all the time, and “bad” things happen to “good” people.  We say we follow and understand certain principles like reciprocity, karma, reaping/sowing, etc.  but then we see good fortune fall upon the unearned, while misfortune sometimes bestows the hard worker.  How and why?

Consider that the above Universal principles and all others for that matter, are designed to work for us, not against us.  The Universe and its Laws are set up to work in our favor. And in as much as its job is to support us, it cannot defy our vibration. It consistently delivers to us experiences based on what we are putting out, it has no choice. It’s similar to a computer—input and output.  It’s neutral regardless of whether you are a rich man or beggar. It is not a respecter of person.  LOA as well as other Universal principles work for everybody the same.  Isn’t this a wonderful fact?!? But in order to gain the full benefit of this support, we have to do our part by deliberately training and guiding our thoughts, beliefs, and feelings that allow this assistance that’s present for us 24/7 to work completely in our favor.

Forget Fairness

It’s not about being “fair,” or justice, or anything of this kind.  The LOA is always fair and just.  Living in this physical world in physical realities, we have a tendency to always need things to make “sense.”   Which means, often, we start assigning meaning to circumstances and events based on false premises and misconceptions. For example, we start thinking that hard work is a necessary element of success. And of course, putting in physical effort is sometimes necessary to move something from point A to B, but you’re probably also aware of the deep truth that extra effort doesn’t always pay off.  And that sometimes, you can work your ass off and you don’t get what you thought you “deserved.”  While other times you seemingly did nothing at all to get something spectacular to happen in your life.

When we experience certain circumstances and events in our lives, it is due to our being a vibrational/energetic match (on some level).  Our life experience is simply mirroring back to us who and what we are on a core level.  This is a tough pill to swallow, primarily because as things are manifested, they do not seem like anything at all that we are matched with (if it’s negative, if it’s positive we want to take full credit  😊).  So even though you have worked your butt off, done all the right things, and you don’t get the promotion, AND it’s given to someone you deem less deserving, it boils down to vibrational matching.

And just for the record, yes we ALL deserve the best of joy, peace, and happiness.  But not because we’re special people, or that we pray five times a day, or that we pay our tithes. Our mere existence makes us ALL worthy of everything this world has to offer.  Deserving is not based on what you have contributed or whether we’ve been a ‘good’ person.  You deserve what you create!  And you create through your vibrational countenance.  However, there is a sacrifice that does have to be made.  That sacrifice is not allowing your thoughts and beliefs to run rampant.  We must make the ultimate sacrifice of being conscious and deliberate thinkers.  And taking more responsibility for our habitual patterns of thought.  This can not be understated.  As you think, you vibrate, and as you vibrate, you attract. PERIOD!  Yes karma is real, but only due to the fact that good deeds generally are a product of good thoughts and vibrations, while bad deeds are usually products of negative thoughts and vibrations.  And remember the Universe is simply mirroring, so you get back what you put out.  But you can’t produce positive acts and deeds from a negative energetic space.  So it stands to reason when you do good you get good in return.  Not from your deeds, but rather from the thoughts/vibrations that produced the deeds.

This idea that we need to struggle and strive to deserve or earn what we desire is a limiting belief.  Or that “I’ve been through so many trials and tribulations, I DESERVE a better relationship than this.”  Do you?  You deserve exactly what you’ve created.  However, this is NOT about blaming yourself for any misfortune.  We believe in attraction, but there is often a misunderstanding associated with the term that insinuates, ‘you brought this on yourself,’ or ‘it’s your own fault,’ which couldn’t be further from the truth.  Manifestations that occur in our lives based on our vibrational thought patterns, happen as indicators to tell us where we are along the road map.  Am I going in the direction I want to go in or do I need to turn around?  Negative situations/circumstances help us to better focus our intentions for what we TRULY desire.

It is not because you deserve it, nor because you’ve earned; But because you are a vibrational match to it.  

 

 

Proactive Spirituality…

Do you go to church on Sundays? Do you pray towards the East seven times a day? Do you fast, meditate, pray to God? No matter the religion, the common denominator in all of them, whether you are Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jew, etc., is living a life that reflects on the characteristics of a higher power of “good” within all of us. We are to treat each other with kindness, love, respect and compassion. Some religions challenge us to live to a higher standard of spirituality in this physical world. There are numerous rituals that are designed to keep us in remembrance of the life we are supposed to be living from a space of “goodness.”

Religions are created and designed to keep us on a track of living our best lives while contributing to the betterment of others. The fellowship, i.e. church, synagogue, mosque, etc., creates a space for spiritually like-minded individuals to come together to amplify their faith. We leave our places of worship and go back into the world, sometimes carrying those messages with us throughout the week and other times leaving our faith in the building we just left. We live in a perpetual cycle of “spiritual improvement.” We are constantly trying to live up to a standard and we all fall short because we are not perfect. In several religions, there are ways to rectify our shortcomings. Confession, prayer, atonement and so on. And we start the cycle over again with a promise to do better next time. But how can we live more spiritually, day to day, to help us grow to the people we truly want to be? By being spiritually proactive.

We all can “go through the motions” of religion, but living a proactive spiritual life can help determine how successful we will be with our spirituality. One simple way to begin to live life spiritually is by first understanding you are a spirit in the first place. When one thinks of God, Allah, Jehovah, the Most High, we generally associate emotions of love, compassion, understanding, long-suffering and grace. These are some of the characteristics religions look to push as goals and objectives in our daily lives. “Be more loving. Be more understanding. Be more compassionate.” All in the context of our human understanding. But if we don’t understand first, that we are all spirits (the bible says we are created in His image), then we are left to attempt to fit our imperfect, material lives, emotions and understandings, into this divine expectation. Understanding we are spirits in the first place grounds us in the understanding that we inherently share the same fundamental characteristics of the One who created us. Therefore, those same traits we strive to achieve are actually possible.

Second, if we are living from a spiritual proactive place, we also understand that the other people we see also share the same spiritual DNA as we do. They too come from the same exact location, are made of the same spiritual material and are children of the same Creator. The differences and the things that divide us all can be traced back to an ideology, skin color, socialization, economic difference or gender. All of our differences in society are based on something mental or physical…NOT spiritual. When we say ‘spiritual,’ we don’t mean religion. We mean your fundamental spiritual make up as your spirit does not identify with any particular religion. The religion is designed to keep you aware of the existence of your spirit. Therefore, with the understanding of, we are all spirits, coming from the same Creator, we are able to clear the way for an innate love, compassion, understanding and grace for every spirit we encounter. Our walls of difference are self-imposed and are not authentic in relation to our higher selves. When we have this understanding, our “differences” become trivial and we open ourselves to more love, compassion and understanding with our fellow spirits on Earth which is exactly what religions teach.

Lastly, when considering being spiritually proactive, every single spirit has a purpose for manifesting into physical form. Our thoughts, which are produced from a sense of desire which is produced in alignment with our purpose, help manifest into actual things, situations and circumstances. This is how we are designed. If you follow Christian belief in regards to how God created the world, the Universe and everything living, He spoke it into being which means it started as a thought which means it started as a desire which is/was aligned with God’s overall purpose…creation. We are made in His image and therefore are also perpetual creators. We have desires aligned with our purpose which feed our thoughts which feed our emotions, words, actions and deeds to ultimately create and manifest into physical things. God has empowered us in this way.

When we are being spiritually proactive…we are living within our purpose. We are living within what we desire most. And THAT is living the true meaning of life.

The Evolution of Thought

We’re all familiar with or at least have heard the fact that everything in existence was once a thought- Everything.  The entire world we see was once a thought in someone’s imagination or in the thought consciousness of the Universe.  Likewise, we also are very familiar with having a thought, and producing a tangible thing from our thoughts. Whether it be building a house, buying a car, landscaping a lawn, creating a beautiful portrait, etc. But the thought-to-thing creation we want to discuss briefly here is based on attraction.  Having a sustained thought, expectation, and belief and watching it manifest right in front of you, seemingly without any physical action on your part.

How does a vibration turn into a manifestation?  How does a thought turn into a thing? And how can we demonstrate more control and influence over our thoughts, turning them into the things we want?  Short answer:  Emotions.

It is our emotions and feelings that give life, and substance to thought.  The feelings we use to give substance to the thoughts in our mind come from one of two sources: fear or Love, which we can also say resistance or Allowance.  One feels good obviously, while the other, not so much.  Thoughts that are given substance with resistance or fear-based emotions of anger, bitterness, lack, resentment, frustration, or anxiety, will become things (physical life experience) that we experience as “negative” or “bad”.  Thoughts that are given substance with Allowance or Love based feelings such as gratitude, peace, joy, compassion, happiness and well-being, will become things we experience as “positive” and “good”.

Nothing we experience is intrinsically “bad” or “good.”  It is that our minds make it so through our perceptions and the definitions that we place on the things we observe and/or experience.  And through our internal beliefs we form habits of thoughts.  It’s been estimated that we all have roughly about 50-60 thousand thoughts per day.  Sounds like a lot, but not at all surprising to me when I think about how many thoughts run through my mind in a matter of seconds.  What is very intriguing to me however, is that of those 50K-60K thoughts you and I have today, most are the exact same thoughts we had yesterday and the day before and last week, and so on.  We think the same thoughts over, and over again. Which leads to the same emotions/feelings, which then leads to the same actions, and thus the same results.   It’s no wonder why we keep having the same life experience.  You want a new and different life?  Start thinking new and different thoughts.

So how do we do it?  How do we begin? Here’s what we’d like you to know and remember…these two things:  (1).  We are all energy-based beings, and as energy beings we emit vibrational frequencies that are always trying to match other like frequencies – like attracts like (we’re like magnets). (2). Thoughts matched with emotions is one of the most powerful forces we have as human beings.

So as it turns out, you attract what you are!  And you attract things that correspond to what you are, what you think about, and what you believe.  Whatever your mind perceives, it makes real! You and I are in a constant state of manifesting, turning non-material into material.  We are constantly creating something, either wanted or unwanted. Most times we manifest by default, without any intention, and thus create things that we don’t really want.  Imagine, if you will, what could happen if you deliberately set your mental intention. And didn’t allow your mind to run wild as it does.  What do you think you could manifest?

Your present situation is the result of your predominant state of mind in the past. Your future will be as your predominant state of mind is now.  Because you’re creating your future now, only the present is important. By having a predominantly happy and positive state of mind now, you’re creating a happy and positive future.  And your happy and positive thoughts will turn into happy and positive things.  Circumstances and situations don’t matter.  Only your state mind matters, and thus materializes!  The power is knowing that matter is supposed to be subject to mind, not vice versa.

Be picky about your thoughts.  Choose them carefully and wisely. Let your emotions guide you away from thoughts that are fear/resistance based and more towards thoughts that are from a place of allowance and love.  Make your desires known from this place. Set clear intentions. Then let go of thought and become consciously aware of the manifestations that are certain to come.

The Authentic You…

  Who are you? Do you know? Have you figured it out? Usually after we reach a certain age, we all pretty much think we have it figured out. What we like. Our morals, values, character, tastes, integrity, etc. We grow and we learn more about ourselves over time. Self-reflection. Self-evaluation. We explore. We keep certain parts and throw others away, with a constant sense of refinement. Some people never self-reflect or self-correct and are, as my grandmother used to say, “stuck in their ways.” But are these the elements that make you, YOU? Is that the authentic you?

LOL…I recently asked a friend if he knows who he is. Because I often offer him ‘deep’ questions/conversations, as he says, his response went something like this: “I don’t have time for your metaphysical mumbo-jumbo. I am who I am.” I laughed it off but my point was for him to explore a deeper side than being defined by his character, integrity, ambition or physical characteristics. I was pressing him to discover the authenticity of his being. When we know and understand the authenticity of our being…life is put into context. When we have context…we have clarity. When we have clarity…we are immediately empowered. Spiritually empowered in a seemingly chaotic world to manifest our deepest desires in this life.

So I pressed forward with my friend. I asked him, “When you look in the mirror, what do you see?” He responded immediately, “I see ME!” I said to him, “not true. You see a reflection of you.” He rolled his eyes as he felt I was ‘setting him up’ for something. I asked him if I were right. “Do you see YOU or do you see a reflection of you when you look in the mirror?” He eventually agreed that he sees a reflection. So I asked him, “how can it be authentically YOU if what you see is a reflection?” He reluctantly responded, “it’s not me. I guess.” So I asked him, “who is the authentic you then if what you see is a reflection?” His answer, “I have NO idea, but I’m sure you will lecture me about who I really am.”

The following is what I shared with him.

We are essentially the life-force that resides within our bodies. Some refer to this as the soul. The soul animates the body. The energy that is our soul is a powerful force designed to manifest desire in a material world. In other words, realize, create and manifest. We are perpetual creators and our creations are formed and based on our thoughts and desires. This is the authenticity of our being.

My friend and I went on to have the most profound conversation after that for the next 2 hours. But what I offer you today is, when we can understand the authenticity of our being, we realize we are empowered to design, create, author and tailor our existence. We, as powerful, spiritual creators, have the ability to perpetuate God’s creation in our material existence. This is our purpose. Regardless of your appearance, your education, your socioeconomic status, your job title or any other label you identify with…the AUTHENTIC you operates from a place of zero boundary and infinite possibility. THAT is the you that is waiting…patiently…to be discovered. The authentic you. The you that commands circumstance based on thought and innermost desire. Discover the authentic you. And make the impact on your reality that you desire most. Contemplate your desires. Focus on them without boundary or limitation. Visualize yourself operating within those desires. Expect them, without doubt, to be manifested. And then…step into your new reality. This is the authenticity of your being.