Inspiration

What’s purpose got to do with it?

HeartA few posts ago I embarked on the 30 day before bed challenge to see how the five minutes before sleep can change waking reality.  In this challenge I have been flooding myself with what it will feel like when all of my dreams come true, assuming the feeling as if those dreams had truly come to pass already.

The inspiration for this challenge came from Dr. Wayne Dyer’s Wishes Fulfilled where he says, “In this brief portion of your day, you are going to tell your subconscious mind how you feel and what wishes God (the universal one subconscious mind) is to fulfill upon awakening from your deep slumber.  This five-minute segment of time in your bed, about to enter into your subconscious and marinate for the next eight hours or so, is the most crucial segment of your entire 24-hour day,” (Dyer 136).

Since I didn’t fall asleep the second my head hit the pillow last night, I decided to flood myself with the feeling of great love for the people in my life.  Although the miracle of this challenge isn’t what happens during sleep, but rather what begins to manifest in the waking hours of life, my dream last night was so fantastic that I have share its personal revelations.

In last night’s dream I was in a big lecture hall listening to none other than Oprah herself, and she was talking to various people in the audience.  I found myself standing up, staring right at her, when she pointed at me and asked, “What are you?”  Being unsure of my life’s purpose I uneasily responded, “I am a poet?”  She laughed and in her fabulous Oprah tenor replied, “Girl, you’re a talk show host!”

Needless to say, in the dream I was thrilled.  I finally knew my life’s purpose, it had been right in front of me all along!  Just then, in the midst of my jubilation, a man sprayed a hose full of water right in my face.  I then realized something I had been avoiding by not living out my purpose; when you start to live your dreams there will be more opposition from others.  

The higher you are lifted, the stronger the force will be in the opposite direction.  Yet, there is nothing wrong with that, quite the opposite is the case; that backlash is a helpful sign you are living on purpose.  That metaphorical hose down in my dream did not dampen my spirits, I was so overwhelming overjoyed to finally have my purpose revealed to me.

Purpose can come in the form of something you physically do, or it can come in the form of a way of being.  Purpose can be an intention you live by, such as being pure love, being the light of consciousness, or being joy made manifest.  Whether your purpose is a way of being in the world, or has gone on to be a physical task, the joy that comes from living on purpose is unique and endlessly fulfilling.

On this Valentine’s Day which is so often focused on other people’s purposes in our lives, it is my wish to focus on our unique purposes in our own lives.  May this message from Bishop T.D. Jakes on Oprah’s Lifeclass be a refreshing perspective on purpose and fulfillment:

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You

Love Letters

Could you write yourself a love letter?  Reading a letter from someone else expressing love to you is a wonderful experience, but there is nothing quite like being wholly accepted, acknowledged, and loved by yourself.  Being a good friend starts at home; acting and speaking like a good friend to yourself is great practice at how to be a good friend to others.  As cheesy as the premise of the following SoulPancake video may seem, I love the idea of writing a love letter to your very own self.  An awesome byproduct of hearing these people’s love letters to themselves was that I ended up loving them too.

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consciousness

How To Make Stress Good For You

Gene's Grocery If you were absolutely sure, beyond any doubt, that your thoughts create your experience of reality, what you would you do?  Or rather, what would you think?

The following video offers amazing examples of the power of belief over our ability to maintain a state of health and well-being.  But it goes further than that.  It tells us that stress, which is commonly linked to negative physical side effects, is made negative by our thoughts about it.

Psychologist Kelly McGonigal cites a study done in the US that tracked 30,000 adults for eight years.  At the beginning of the study those adults were asked about their levels of stress in the last year and if they believed stress was harmful for their health. Then, as McGonigal states, “they used public death records to find out who died.” While people who experienced a high level of stress had a 43% increase in dying, they all had one other factor in common, they believed stress was bad for them.  The adults who were highly stressed but didn’t believe stress was harmful to their health had the lowest risk of dying of anyone in the study, including the participants with relatively low levels of stress.

McGonigal goes on to explain these results on a physical level, but the message of her TED talk has implications for more than just the experience of stress.  When we experience anything in our lives we have the choice to accept that it is happening, or resist it internally.  Nonresistance of what is not only opens us up to experiencing the highest manifestation that can be born of that situation, but it also allows the body to regulate itself and maintain its own health.

Today I invite you to ask yourself, “What thoughts about my life situation are causing me pain or dis-ease?”  Experiment with replacing that view-point with one that is accepting, empowering, and joyful.  You could be saving your own life!

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Inspiration

How To Calm A Turbulent Mind

Photo by Peter SperoIt is common to tell someone to, “take a deep breath,”  when they’re on the verge of becoming distraught.  This next advice goes far beyond well wishing and explains how the breath can actually work for you in times of trial:

“The wonderful way of charging yourself with nectar is just by breathing. Breath is our life. Breath not only builds up the body, it also builds up the mind. If you regulate the breath, you have regulated the mind. To give an example: Suppose somebody looks at you and uses a very bad word. The person used nothing but a sound, but you got really disturbed. You become angry. Just a little agitation of the mind agitated your whole body. And what happened to your breath? That is the secret. The agitation of the mind brings agitation of the breath. So take the clue and say, ‘To calm the mind, calm the breath.'” (Swami Satchidananda)

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Inspiration

“Suffering is necessary until you realize it is unnecessary.” – Tolle

Good Morning Today I slept extremely late. Having a day free from work and obligations is a beautiful thing and I usually relish it.  But today, instead of enjoying the time off, I decided to make a big “to-do” list to keep unsettlingly at the forefront of my mind, while feeling completely unmotivated to accomplish any of my tasks.  I kept wishing I had the motivation to get things done while I actually had the spare time.  At the same time I felt nervous knowing that if I didn’t complete my “to-do” list today, I would be in a panic later on when I would be busier.

Does this sound at all familiar? Have you ever woken up in a funk?  Have you ever wished you could just feel better or feel more motivated?

This morning, in my day-off funk, I decided the least I could do was watch some videos on YouTube in the hopes that something inspirational would pop up.  If you’ve ever watched an Eckhart Tolle video, and if you read this blog regularly you most certainly have, you will know that each video starts with the sound of a bell, a high-pitched “ping,” which is coincidentally now the iPhone alert for a text message.

The second I heard the “ping” I realized what I had been doing all morning.  I was hoping that at some point the feeling of motivation would overtake me, and I’d get up and take action.  I was waiting for this feeling to happen.  But feelings don’t just fly through the ether and enter in through your ears.  They are created and experienced from within your very self.

All morning I was waiting for an emotion to happen to me, when the only way to feel that emotion was to create it myself.  Waiting to feel motivated is a trick.  It won’t happen.  You have to make the decision to invite that feeling forth within yourself.  The good news is that this is not as big of a task as it may seem.

Feeling the way you want to feel only takes one small step in this one moment you are experiencing.  That small step may be washing your face and brushing your hair, or going to a cafe to get some tea or coffee, or searching YouTube for an inspirational video.

With that being said, I now relinquish my big “to-do” list, and am finding my motivation right here with this one task of typing words on a keyboard.  The next step will take care of itself; the next task will happen in the moment that it happens.  Until then, I will work on creating the way I want to feel in each small act.

Understanding that emotions are created within, and choosing which emotions you want to feel, are the first steps to getting out of a funk.  I invite you to make that choice with me.  What inner feeling do you want to cultivate today?

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Inspiration

Eckhart Tolle’s “Secret Formula”

Photo by Peter SperoEckhart Tolle has a “secret formula” for navigating the myriad of changing forms we call life.  I’m going to give it away, even before the video: what is is.  Ok so the formula is no secret, it is pretty obvious that this moment is how it is.  Such a perspective could not be more basic.  But when you actually feel that “what is is” a momentous transformation takes place.  You have allowed your experience to be as it is, and in surrender have placed yourself at the seat of power. You can now witness your situation and allow the highest potential response to emerge from that awareness.  Burden and effort are replaced by ease, spontaneity, and creativity.  In the following video Tolle offers how to enter this state in any given situation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFhCi0ygOhU

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Ego

Why News Commentary Is Made To Fail

AC360I rarely watch television news, but that wasn’t always the case.  For one year in college I was a news junkie.  Throughout that transformative, yet tumultuous, year in my life, I watched hours of news programming each day.

This was partly a form of comfort. While immersed in the news, the voice in my head was temporarily replaced by that of the news anchor.  Instead of learning about the nature of my mind, and the suffering created by thought, I was trading in an unsatisfactory identification with my life situation for a new identification with the stories on the news.

The energy of past pain, the pain body, that is strengthened and experienced anew by the energy of current suffering, was awake within me and relished this new identification with news stories.  After all, those stories carried the same low frequency energy of the past pain; they were its new lifeblood.

A few nights ago I felt compelled to watch Anderson Cooper 360.  After hearing several stories and endless commentary I realized why news commentary is often detrimental and unhelpful to the situations they discuss.

What do Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, and even local news have in common?  They all consist of people discussing the ins and outs of other people’s situations.  To the ego life is a mental screen of thought. Yet, real life is that which is felt, witnessed, and experienced by an individual.   The surest way to pass on those uniquely experienced and understood life lessons is to share from the depths of your own experience, or as a commentator to reflect on your shared human experience.

When we hear commentary trying to assess, label, and judge a situation we get further and further away from any real meaning. Commentators transform into voices identified with mental positions, and are no longer engaged in a discussion about a real human being’s unique life experience.  News commentary is the collective ego, strengthening the ego in all those they debase to a mere story.

What is really going on in any given situation can never be fully understood.  Without that felt realization, news commentary will continue to be void of conscious awareness, ignorant of the beings it has turned into objects, and continue to strengthen the collective human ego.

Full disclosure, I am writing a commentary on why the current state of commentary is unhelpful.  While I attempt to offer the best and most honest areas of my current understanding, I too know the excitement and strong appeal of purporting opinions on the lives and actions of others.  With that in mind, I acknowledge the state of the exchange of ideas that we are currently experiencing in this day and age, which I am not separate from, but wholeheartedly envision a world of communication with a remembrance of the unity and profundity of each human being.

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spirituality

The Meaning of Spirituality

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When studying poetry in college I often heard, and posed, the question, “what does this mean?”  

One of the more commonly frustrating aspects of poetry is that, as a reader, it is natural to want to know the meaning of a poem when the meaning can be fluid and not obvious.  This begs the question, what is the meaning of poetry altogether?

It was only through the act of writing poetry that I began to truly understand the answer to that question.  More intelligent and creative poets are able to articulate their answers exquisitely, and while I cannot yet satisfactorily answer that question through prose I nonetheless have the understanding, the essential first illuminating step that precedes a verbal explanation.

What does this have to do with spirituality?  Like poetry, spirituality can seem elusive, vague, and unsatisfyingly fluid in its meaning.  But just as the act of writing a poem can help a person understand the meaning of poetry better than any cerebral exercise, the practice of spirituality is the basis for gaining a real understanding of the meaning of that word.  In the following video Eckhart Tolle beautifully articulates where the true meaning of spirituality can be found:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWJsphnmGXE

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Inspiration

5 Minutes That Can Make Your Dreams Come True

photo by Peter SperoWhat runs through your mind five minutes before sleep?  I used to be in the “can’t stop my mind from racing so I can’t sleep” club and am very relieved to have stepped down as a member many years ago.  Even if you don’t have a problem falling asleep at night your thought pattern right before sleep is affecting your waking life more than you may have realized.  Sleep is the time where our subconscious mind reigns.  We go back to the spacious ether from whence we came for regeneration, and emerge with fresh life force energy each morning.

I recently finished reading Dr. Wayne Dyer’s Wishes Fulfilled, which I cannot recommend enough, where he talks about the ways in which we train our subconscious mind with the thoughts we have right before sleep.  The subconscious mind is the deep end of the mind, which contains all that we have learned and programmed ourselves to know automatically, like driving a car, riding a bike, or answering “Well, and you?” when someone asks how we are.  The subconscious mind acts through us without us having to vocalize the instructions with thoughts.  The actions prompted by the subconscious mind creates the majority of our experience. Dr. Dyer calls it our “automatic pilot.”

So what is important about the five small minutes before falling asleep?  According to Dr. Dyer, “In this brief portion of your day, you are going to tell your subconscious mind how you feel and what wishes God (the universal one subconscious mind) is to fulfill upon awakening from your deep slumber.  This five-minute segment of time in your bed, about to enter into your subconscious and marinate for the next eight hours or so, is the most crucial segment of your entire 24-hour day,” (Dyer 136).

I am not taking Dr. Dyer’s word for it.  I’m going to embark on a 30 day before-bed challenge, in which I use the last five minutes of my waking day to imagine my wildest dreams and assume the feelings of those dreams as if they were already my reality.  Will this change what my subconscious mind manifests throughout my days?  Will those positive emotions merely cause pleasant dreams, or will they permeate my waking experience?  

I encourage you to join with me on this 30 day before-bed challenge, and see how five minutes can change your whole reality.  It may be helpful to make a list of the thoughts and emotions you will fill your mind with before bed, and recite them to yourself each night right before sleep.  If nothing else, this nightly ritual will surely help those of you still in the “can’t stop my mind from racing so I can’t sleep” club to resign your membership and embark on your new journey in the “wishes fulfilled” cohort!

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