The Example That Is You

 

“Example is not the main thing in influencing others it is the only thing”

- Albert Schweitzer

The above quote strikes a deep chord with me. We talk the talk, do we walk the walk?  As we travel along our journey, what kind of example are we to those whom we touch? We all know that it is much easier to think about the lessons that we learn along the way then it is to put them into application and truly experience them.  For it is from direct experience that we truly learn. We can sit here every day and have the greatest, most profound conversations about our journey, about the lessons that we are learning, however if do not apply these thoughts and lessons to our moment to moment physical life, than what have we accomplished?

The application of the lessons we learn is the challenge. It’s often easy as we sit in solitude to be aware, to dig deep, to understand, to express love and feel peace. The trick is to be able to carry those same dynamics of our soul into our daily interaction with the people in our life, the earth, the plants, the animals and the Universe. Daily life throws many things our way, many of those things appear to be a challenge. When we are challenged is very easy to fall into old habitual ways of reacting which do not mesh with who we deeply are and how we desire to think.

It is our responsibility to learn from our inner self, to really listen to the voice of our soul and to place these learned lessons into full action, that is to live our life in every way from our soul.

Observe yourself today, are you applying the lessons that you have learned or are you slipping back into old habits, old ways of re-acting to the world at large. Take an even closer look at yourself as a challenge comes your way, weather that challenge comes in the form of a task or maybe a person who is difficult to deal with. Observe how you react, observe your thoughts, your words, and your actions. Ask yourself are you applying the lessons that you are learning or are you simply reacting in a way that is expected by society or because you find it easier to fall back into your old habits?

One of the easiest ways to gauge where you are in relation to acting and reacting to the world at large is to listen to how you feel after you have reacted. For instance, often times when we respond in anger, even anger that we feel was truly justifiable, we still feel just as bad or worse afterwards. Why is that? Simple, we feel bad afterwards because our reaction is not aligned with what we truly know. You know when all is aligned, because your example reflects your true inner self and the spirit of your soul.

The Harmony of Our Thoughts, Words and Actions

Happiness is when
what you think,
what you say,
and what you do
are in harmony” 

– Gandhi    

            

What Gandhi says so simply is so very wise. When what we think, what we say and what we do are all the same, then there is incredible harmony in our life.

Of course this is easier said then done. There are many instances in a day where we are thinking one thing and saying or doing another thing. The reasons that we do this vary, we may think something, yet not say what we are thinking because our thought is inappropriate for the audience that we have, our thought is not “politically correct”, or our thought is “hell no, I don’t want to do that”, however we don’t desire the consequences of expressing that thought so we do something that is not in harmony with our thought.

This makes me think of the old “Alley Mcbeal” show, where you would see what the main character was thinking and what she really wanted to say or do versus what she said or did in reality. I believe that many of us have had moments like this. I remember when I was a young child, “Mad” magazine had a recurring comic where you would see two people talking nicely to each other, however, their shadows were showing what they really wanted to be saying or doing.

Although not actually saying or doing what we are actually thinking is sometimes a matter of social survival, it no the less creates disharmony within our life.

Conversely when we are in a state of flow, a state where our thoughts, words and actions are all aligned than we experience a surge of energy, we feel in harmony with the Universe, we feel great about ourselves, and we are more efficient and more productive.

When we are spirit-centric, our thoughts come from a place of love, therefore are words and actions come from a place of love, they come from spirit which is love.

As in all things that we do to grow as we trek through our journey, we must increase our awareness. One way to become aware of  are harmony or disharmony in relation to our thoughts, words and actions is to become the observer and listen and watch our self. When we watch and listen to ourselves, we will take note of times when our words or actions do not feel good, we will take note of how what we are saying and doing is not aligned with what we are thinking or we may find that our words and actions are aligned with our thinking and that our thought is the at the root of why we said or did something that was manifested by ego rather than spirit.

When we our thoughts, words and actions are not in harmony, the disharmony that we feel has many effects on us that go beyond emotions. When we are in a state of disharmony we often tend to manifest physical ailments, such as headaches, digestive problems, etc.

We are mean and unkind in our words and actions when our thoughts are mean or unkind. When our thoughts are loving then everything we do and say is loving.

Consider what you do and say today. Ask yourself, “are my words and actions aligned with my thoughts?”, if my words/actions are mean spirited or unkind, then what thoughts do I need to change to have a positive impact on my words and actions.

What Is Missing In Your Life?

 

What’s missing in your life? I would like you to take a moment and consider this question. Is it romance, money, your soul mate, time, family? What is it that you are missing that if you had it would complete you or make you happier than you are right now?

Many people believe that something is missing in their life and that if they only had that thing they were missing, then life would be more complete and then they would be happier. We are told from the time we are a child that everything will be better when …

We are told by society that we will be happier when we fill that void, whatever that void may be.

We tend to worry about what we are missing in our life. We watch others around us and we see that other people have things that we don’t and if they appear to be “happy” we then wonder if we had what they had would we be happier than we are right now. We may say to ourselves, “I would be so much happier if only I had ___________” You fill in the blank, it could be anything. In our culture it is often money, love, a child, a family, romance, our soul mate, a bigger house, a nicer car, a better understanding of “God”, etc.

I believe that one of the greatest lessons we can learn along our journey is that we are not missing anything, that all is as it is supposed to be for the moment. The lesson is that everything that we ever need or have needed is within us. We have never needed anything external to us to be happier than we are right now. Although we may find some pleasure in the chase of external things, the truth is that we have all that we need.

You may remember ancient and modern stories of the person who had the least material things to give others, freely gave them to help others while those with plenty selfishly clung on to their material things and were not a generous. The person who seemingly has nothing to give and gives what little they do have to help others understands this lesson. They understand that they already have everything they will ever need. They understand that it was their birthright to have everything they needed in life and that their happiness did not lay in obtaining something external to them.

I am reminded of the story of a child who grew up in a family who every weekend would make extra food to deliver to neighbors who were not as fortunate. When the child’s school did a food drive for a needy family, the child gladly brought in food for the food drive. This same child was very surprised when he opened the door the following Saturday morning to discover that the “needy family” that the school had done the food drive for was his family. See this child was raised in a family of abundance, they knew they had everything they needed and that none of what they needed was external.

So, I ask you, are you truly missing anything in your life?  Are you sitting there saying I will be happy when or I would be happy if only if …?

For most of us, we are the only obstacle to our own happiness. Time to get out of our way and allow ourselves to be truly happy!

Who’s Yardstick Are You Using?

If you did not have anyone else to measure yourself against, what would you use as your yardstick? How would you know how far to raise the bar?

Many people live there life’s striving to measure up to someone else’s achievements or expectations. Some people grow up measuring their success against the success of their parents, i.e. when they have reached a point in their life when they have more income, a better house or car, they feel they have achieved a level of accomplishment because they have exceeded the lifestyle of their parents. Many people also use people in the media as a yardstick for measuring their success in life. On a closer level people often measure themselves against their peers, their co-workers, their neighbors (keeping up with the Jones’s), etc.

Imagine however that you did not have anyone else to measure yourself against. What then? How would you know if you were successful, how would you know if you were achieving? If you had no one to measure yourself against would you still be motivated to achieve and to grow?

Some people are so addicted to being competitive in the way they approach their personal growth and achievements that if you took them out of a competitive environment, they would lose their drive, they would lose their desire to move forward because they would have a difficult time of seeing why they should continue to grow if there was no “winning” involved in their efforts.

Even people who are consciously on a spiritual path often find themselves checking how enlightened they are against someone else who the believe is more enlightened.  Even as we strive to be spirit centric, our ego still attempts to influence our thinking and tries to get us to measure ourselves against something outside of our self.

The true and only measurement of our personal growth, achievements or success is when we measure against ourselves. This measurement is rather simplistic, it is simply creating awareness of our self, knowing the answer to the questions, are we a little kinder today then yesterday, have we gained some wisdom, have we grown more aware, are we fuller of love,  etc? We know the answers to these questions and we know how to make proper adjustments to continue to move forward  in our personal growth.

When we use ourselves as a yardstick for measuring our growth, we tend to eliminate the frustration that we experience when we are attempting to live up to the standards and achievements of others. We no longer go through the exercise of comparing our self to someone else and in doing so, eliminate the negative feeling of not measuring up and we also remove the emotion of jealousy and envy from our life. Instead of jealousy and envy  when we view the accomplishments of others, we begin to find joy in their achievements, we find lessons in what they have done and we learn how to apply these lessons to our life.

Today, I would like you to reflect on your thoughts and ask yourself, who’s race are you running, whose yardstick are you using? If the answer is anyone’s but your own, then you need to acknowledge that and then ask yourself why.

Start measuring yourself against yourself and you will find the joy in knowing how much you grow each day and how much control you have over your personal growth.

Going Beyond the Limitations of Others

 

A young man fell asleep during math class. He woke up as the bell rang, looked at the blackboard, and copied down the two problems that were there. He assumed they were the homework for the night. He went home and labored the rest of the afternoon and into the evening knowing if he didn’t complete the work he would surely fail the class.

He couldn’t figure out either one but he kept trying for the rest of the week. Finally, he got the answer to one and brought it to class. The teacher was absolutely stunned. The boy feared he had done too little, too late. It turned out the problem he solved was supposedly unsolvable.

How was this young man able to solve a problem that had eluded some of the greatest math minds? Simple, he did not know that the problem was labeled as unsolvable. He was able to solve the problem out of ignorance. He did not have any preconceptions about the math equation and in his mind thought the problem to be a normal problem that he had been tasked to solve and therefore did just that!

This reminds me of another timeless story of a time when an eighteen-wheel tractor trailer got stuck as it tried to go under a low bridge. The truck driver quickly realized what he had done when he heard the scraping sound of the top of his truck coming in contact with the bridge above and stopped the truck before any serious damage was done. He got out of the truck and assessed the situation. His truck was simply an inch or two too tall to pass under the bridge. If he moved the truck forward he would surely do more damage to the truck, if he backed up, he feared that he may cause more damage. For the moment he was stuck. A crowd of people gathered around as traffic backed up on the busy road. There were many suggestions offered, however none that didn’t involve causing more damage to the truck. A little boy riding his bike, no more than 6 or 7 years old came upon this curious scene and immediately saw in his mind how to solve the problem.  He went up to the truck driver and said, “Let some of the air out of all of your tires until you have enough room to pass”. Of course this worked and the grateful trucker was able to move his truck without incurring any further damage to his truck.

Our perceptions and beliefs color how we solve the problems that arise in our life. Many times people succeed out of pure ignorance. What are they ignorant of? They are simply ignorant of other people’s limitations.

When you take on a project or a new problem arises in your life, you will find many people who will give you all kinds of reasons why something won’t work.  The key is to learn how to filter out the limitations of other people or to see past their limitations and find a way to make things work or find a way to solve a problem. I am a firm believer that there is a solution to every problem, even those which do not seem solvable, we simply must remove the limitations of others and of our self to find the solution.

I encourage you to take a look at what is happening in your life and what you are not doing or not solving because of the limitations of others or your own self imposed limitations.

Remove these limitations, have the ignorance of a child or the new kid on the block and you will be amazed at how the solutions will seemingly magically appear.

Relationships- Eliminate Assumptions – Tell How Much You Care

 

Relationships are often fraught with assumptions. One of the biggest assumptions that many people who are in relationships make is that the other person knows how “I feel”. Many people assume that the other person knows exactly how they feel because they assume that they adequately express how they feel about the other person through their actions or because they have been together for an extended period of time. I am sure that you have heard people express this by saying something like “I don’t need to say “I love you” to her/him, she/he knows I how much I love them!”  This statement may be true, the other person may know how much they are loved, however, more often then not, this is not true.

People in relationships, weather it be a romantic relationship, a relationship with your parents, children, other family members, or co-workers, it is usually not safe to assume that the other people in your life know how you feel if you are not outwardly expressing how you feel.

Many of us live very busy lives and we tend to take for granted that the people in our life “know” how we feel about them. Many people are often taken by surprise when their significant other announces that they don’t feel loved or appreciated as they walk out the door. Many people are stunned when they learn of a suicide of someone close to them, not realizing that the person who committed suicide felt un-loved, or felt that know one was proud of them or that they were not appreciated. I am certain that there are many people out there who have contemplated taking their own life, however changed their mind because someone suddenly expressed how much they loved them or appreciated them. They didn’t take their life because someone close to them took the time to express their love and appreciation for them.

Think about how often you have heard people express that they don’t feel loved or appreciated in their relationships when the reality was that the other person loved them very much, however did not express that emotion very well or at all.

Much of what we talk about here revolves around being mindful, slowing down and responsible for our thoughts and actions. Our relationships are one of largest aspects of our daily life. When one of our relationships end we often feel a large void in our life and we often are regretful for what we had not taken the time to do or say.

I implore you to do the following today:

Romantic Relationship – take the face of the one you love in your hands, look into their eyes and tell them how much you love them, how you love waking up everyday to them and how much you appreciate that they have chosen to be in your life. Open your heart and let them know how you truly feel about them.

Parent to Child Relationship – sit down with your child or call them on the phone if they live away from you and tell them how proud you are to be their parent, tell them how much you love them and how they have enhanced your life in ways that you could have never imagined.

Child to Parent Relationship – sit down with your parent or call them on the phone if they live away from you and tell them how much you love them, how much you appreciate all the things they did for you, all the sacrifices that they made, all the times they were present in your life and how it is because of them that you have become the person you are today.

Co-worker Relationship – express your gratitude to your co-workers, tell them how good of a job they are doing, tell them how much positive impact they have in your life, tell them how proud you are to work with them, tell them how proud you are of them, tell them how much you appreciate their friendship.

Friend to Friend Relationship – If you can, meet face to face, hold or shake their hand and tell them how much they mean to you, how much you love them, how much they enhance you life. Tell them how much you love that they are always there for you. Tell them how great they are.

Take the time to today, to express what you feel and how strong those feelings are to the people in your life. Take this step and enhance all of your relationships today!

I would you to know, that I appreciate all of the thoughts that you share here. I appreciate all of the love and blessings that you send my way. I love that you are here, taking the time to read my thoughts. My life is enhanced by your very presence, thank-you!

Savor the Flavor Of The Common Things In Your Daily Life

 

The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things.

• - Henry Ward Beecher

Our days are full of many things, most of which are common things that we each do every day. We often take for granted the common things in our life because they have become such a natural thread of our day to day life. It is often not until we feel the absence of the common things in our life before we once again appreciate them.

When one was the last time that you savored that which you ate. Many days we are shoving food in our mouth in between meetings, phone calls and other activates and not taking the time to enjoy the variety of tastes that cross our pallet. Even when we do have time to sit down and enjoy a meal, we often do not slow down our eating process enough to enjoy the delicate taste of what we are eating. Watch someone who tastes something as simple as peanut butter for the first time and observe the pure joy they derive from the taste that they experience. Move to a different part of the world where you cannot readily get one of your favorite foods and note how when you do get to once again taste that which you have missed, how much you savor that taste, how joyful you feel as your taste buds are caressed and how you savor the smell of this food.

We also often take for granted those in our life whom are closest to us. We go through our days, simply assuming that they will be there again tomorrow. In do so, we often forget to look deeply into their eyes and make a connection, we forget to smile at them or reach out and touch them as they walk past us. We may rush out of the house without letting them know how much we love and appreciate them.

When we are intimate with our lover, we may rush though the act of making love and fail to appreciate and savor the touch, tastes, smells and nuances of each other. The art of making love is that of two people who savor each other, who shut the world out and stops time and become intimately focused, melting into each other with only thoughts of the enjoyment and love of each other.

Many people sleepwalk through their day, missing the glorious taste of water, the wonderful feeling of the sun as it heats your face on a cold winter’s day, the simple act of connecting with others in our life by making sincere eye contact or expressing themselves with kind and loving words.

Being aware of the joy found in all of the common things we do in a day and slowing ourselves down to savor the moments, the tastes, the touch, the contact of each other, the smells, etc will help to make each day of your life more joyful that you can imagine.

Today, as you eat, as you interact with other people, as you cook dinner, make the bed, do your homework, write your presentation, slow down and savor the joy that is found in all of the common things you do.

What joys in your life are you missing, taking for granted? How much are missing by doing so much so you won’t miss anything?

Joy is to found in the simplest things in your life! Make a point today to savor the flavor of life in everything you do!

Not Sure How? Do It Anyway!

“Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell’em, ‘certainly I can!’ – and get busy and find out how to do it.” 

•  Theodore Roosevelt

This quote aptly describes why I have had so many great opportunities both in my professional and personal life. There have been numerous times in my life where I have presented an opportunity or have been approached to fill a position that I had little or no knowledge of how to do what I was being tasked to do. Not knowing how to do something rarely holds me back. When faced with this situation, I quickly dig in and start researching what I need to know, teach myself what I need to know, seek out mentors who can help me learn what I need to know to be successful at whatever the endeavor is. I do not consider the option of failure. I simply ask myself, how can I make myself the resident expert at this task. The answer usually is, I have to do a lot of homework, I have to put in a few extra hours and I have to believe that I will succeed.

When asked to do something or when an opportunity arises for me to learn how to do something, I tend to go with my instinct, which usually says, go for it! You can do it! I also remember that everyone who ever did anything started out at the bottom of the knowledge scale, they had to learn it, they had to make mistakes along the way, yet they succeeded, so why would it be any different for me?

I love the challenge of learning something new and then setting on the path to mastering what I have learned in both knowledge and application.

I think all too often people sell themselves short and do not step up to the plate when opportunity presents itself. The reason for this is usually fear based, fear that they don’t know enough, fear that they will make mistakes, fear that they will make a fool out of themselves, fear that they will fail and ironic as it sounds some people fear that they will be successful.

I will let you in on a little secret, many of the top people in their field got to the position they did because they were willing to take on tasks that they did not believe they were qualified to do, however they believed they could learn how to do and do it successfully. Many of these same people, who become the power players in their fields of  endeavor secretly harbor a nagging fear that someday they will be “found out”, that is, someday, someone will realize how under qualified they really are for what they do.

What opportunities are you missing because you are not sure you are qualified to take advantage of it?

If you are missing certain skills, what traits do you have that would enable you to learn the task in question and be successful?

Weather it be personal growth, career progression or a combination of both, confidently step up to the plate and say “Certainly I  can!” and then dig in and figure out the how!

Dream Share

 

Last night I had many dreams, which is not unusual. For whatever reason I feel compelled to share parts of these dreams with you today.

In my dream, I am sitting at a table with some other people, I know them, however I don’t recall who they were. Someone delivers two letters to me. One is somewhat heavy, I can tell that it has money in it, bills and loose change. I open this one first, it has $26.00 and change in it. I sense that it came from someone I know of, however, not someone whom I met, as a form of a thank-you. I think to myself that this person didn’t need to do this. I then find myself. The second letter has some tiny scrolls in it. I look at the scrolls. The writing is in a language I don’t understand, I think that it is Native American, something from the Hopi tribe, however I am not sure. I discount it as a message that I am not yet ready to understand and I put the scrolls aside.

I then find myself in a car, driving down the interstate, the section of interstate that I am on is straight, I don’t remember any other cars being present on the road. I am driving along at a very fast speed when I realize that I am going to miss by exit if I don’t slow down. I try to slow down, however I can’t seem to find a way to slow the car down, I only seem to be going faster. Somehow, as I come up to my exit, I am able to slow down, I see off to my right what appears to be parts of another vehicle scattered all over the road and a couple of policemen survey the accident scene.

When I get to the top of the exit ramp, I am no longer in the car. I am now on foot when I meet a small group of people. I can visibly see two big men, they look very sunburned. They ask me for directions (not sure to where), they then proceed to tell me that the spent the night down in the valley below, where they met some good people, ate with them and had good conversation.

That is all I can remember. Not sure what all of this meant or why I am compelled to share this with you, however hear it is.

Be Aware of Your Thoughts – Actions Often Follow

All action begins as a thought. As I observe the news in which we see many people who seem to be living fairly, culturally defined “normal” life’s doing some very horrific things to their spouses and children, the question that begs to be answered is why? Why do these people who seem to be going along living a socially acceptable life all of a sudden snap and drown their children or murder their spouse or do some equally horrible act. Some may say that these people simply snapped and they acted without thinking, however that statement would be in conflict with the theory that all action is a result of thought. Now you may be thinking well that is not necessarily true, some action, such as the way our body works is not a result of thought, they just happen. For example I don’t think about breathing, I just do. I don’t think about my heart beating, it simply does. These are actions which are controlled by signals from the brain. These thoughts are automatic and do not require us to have conscious thought to make the action happen. What I am talking about today is different than that. I am talking about the actions you take throughout the day, every action you take requires a thought prior to the action, even if that thought happens within nanoseconds, such as when we are driving a car and a child runs out in front of us, we know to hit the breaks or swerve to miss the child, however that is all thought and then action. One may say that this is a reaction and they would be correct. It is a reaction to a thought.

We may even say to ourselves at times that we should have thought before we did or said something. This is rather incomplete, what we really mean to say is that we should have thought about “it” more before we said what we said or did what we did.

When everyday people seem to snap and do something unthinkable, I believe that they had been thinking about it, they may have been thinking about it for a long time, not ever believing that they would really do what they were thinking of. They were having their private fantasy of “what if”. What if I wanted to end my relationship, how would I end it. How could I avoid all of the strife of a break-up and what it entails. A person may start out with innocuous thoughts such as, “my life would be so much easier without him/her”, “if I didn’t have the children to worry about ….” or “I would love to show them, I would love to find a way to hurt those people the way they have hurt me for all this time”.

Of course the problem is that our thoughts do often become reality and that sometimes when a person snaps, these thoughts that have been peculating in the mind do become reality and often in some tragic way. The thought becomes an action and before the person realizes what they have done it’s over. They have committed some act which is irreversible.

Our thoughts often do become our actions. Our thoughts are so much more powerful then we ever give them credit for. Our thoughts are some of the most intense energy that permeates this universe. This is why we must be aware of our thoughts and why we must understand that if what you are thinking is not what you want, then you must acknowledge that thought and then create a counter thought or an understanding that this thought is not what you truly intend.

I have seen enough court room dramas to know that a jury’s decision can be swayed by getting a defendant to admit to thinking or saying that they were so mad at the victim that they could have killed them. Not that this means they did, however the thought was there.

Be keenly aware of your thoughts, understand that they are not “just” thoughts. Your thoughts are the catalyst for action. This is why in when you get into a heated argument with someone that you may blurt something out that you wish you hadn’t. The key is, you simply blurted out a thought. If you were not thinking a hateful or hurtful