You and Me

Me:  Based upon your life experience, what would you say is the most important advice you would give someone about living a meaningful life.

You:  I like how you get right to it…..but my answer depends upon how you define "meaningful".  The Human vocabulary is very limiting when it comes to where this conversation is going.

Me:  Ok, what I mean is making a positive contribution to all that is, friends, family, the Earth and all living things.

You:  Well, what about  Spirit?  Don't you want to contribute to spirit? 

Me:  Wait, wait……… isn't spirit all knowing?  How could I contribute to spirit? 

You:  let's make sure we are on the same page about what spirit is.  Define what Spirit is for you?

Me:  It's the intelligence and energy behind all that is.  It's the impulse to grow,  evolve and progress in a sustainable way.  That’s what it means to me anyway, but I guess there is no real way of actually knowing what it is.

You:  Have you ever felt it? 

Me:   Yeah, every once in a while I can feel it, sometimes in the form of a thought, sometimes in the form of a palpable feeling in my body. 

You: How do you know it's spirit?  Maybe it's just your intuition or gut.

Me:  I think my intuition is spirit.  When I am open to it, that impulse to grow, evolve and progress comes through with wisdom or creativity that I need to learn from or act from so that I am moving in the right direction.

You:  How do you know what the right direction is?  And what do you mean when you are open to it?  Do you choose when to be open to it? 

Me:  I thought I was going to be asking the questions today!!!  Anyway, for me, I can discern the right direction based on how it feels in my heart.  I have to be sure that I don't let my intellect creep in.  As for choosing to be open to it, apparently I do make a choice when to be open. 

You:  So, if spirit is all knowing, why would you not choose to be open to it more often?  Seems to me that would be the easiest way to live your life aligned with your goal of a meaningful life.

Me:  I don't know.  I am much more deliberate about being open to it now that I have ever been before though.

You:  It's not enough!!!   If you goal is to make a positive contribution to all that is, friends, family, the Earth and all living things, you should spend the vast majority of your time listening to Spirit.  And by the way that is how you contribute to Spirit as well.  You know those times when you listen to Spirit and you feel empowered and just the right wisdom or creativity required at that moment comes to you?  That is you contributing to Spirit.

Me:  Not sure I'm following you on how that contributes to Spirit.  What do you mean?

You:  Well, Spirit is all knowing, it is all the wisdom, creativity, intelligence, energy, anything  that is necessary for existence.  But knowing all of that is one thing, experiencing it in manifestation is a totally different thing, so when you tap in to Spirit, and act upon it, you experience what Spirit is as a physical manifestation.  Think about it, when you are tapped into Spirit and act upon it, what problems do you have.

Me:  Nothing, it's awesome!!  Like nothing I have ever felt!!!

You:  So why would you not spend more time in that state?

Me:  Ok, Ok, I get it, I should be more deliberate in living from Spirit, but I want to talk more about Spirit.  Everyone has access to Spirit right?

You:  Access is not a good word to use with Spirit.  It makes it sound like its something separate from you or anyone else for that matter.  Spirit is you, it's closer than your breath and nearer than your beating heart.  It's the essence of you in the physical world….You are in this world but not of it!!!

Me:  I can get grasp that, but if that’s the case, why are there so many fucked up things in the world.  If we are all spirit, why are we killing each other, many times in the name of God?  Why is there disease, poverty, strife and separation in so much of the human population?

You:  Why indeed?  You touched on it earlier.  Too many people let there intellect drive their actions.  Humans believe the most absurd things and discount the most evident truths because they rarely allow spirit to provide them direction.  But lets keep our conversation focused on you.  You need to be much more deliberate in living from Spirit.  You need to begin to remove those things that do not allow you to be tapped in to spirit from your daily activities.  This is how you will contribute the most to all that there is.  No other way.

To Be Continued

Thriving is an evolutionary impulse.

To Thrive is an urge that resides within each and every one of us, it is an evolutionary impulse.  When we allow ourselves to be embraced by the qualities of thriving, problems do not exist.  On an energetic spectrum, thriving is very close to Love.  Progress, Expansion, Prospering and Advancement are qualities that are associated with both Love and thriving.  Thriving along with Love  is not static, they are not attained, they are not a destination.  They are a processes for lack of a better description (words cannot aptly describe divinity), and they are innate to us and are experienced when we allow ourselves to.  There is no effort involved to experience Love or Thriving, only allowing.

Since leaving my Corporate gig some 4 months ago, I spent the Summer playing, riding my Motorcycle across the country and kind of decompressing from an environment that was becoming increasingly mechanistic in the achievement of the established metric of "Success".  While that last sentence may sound as though I'm critical of the environment, I am very grateful for my time with the firm and the people I worked with.  Who I am today and how I think is to a degree a result of my time and experience in the corporate world.  The concept of Thriving at anything was really stimulated and awakened for me in the last 18 months of my office Gig.

Howard Thurman (do you know who he was?  If not research him, research is part of thriving) said "Don't ask what the world needs, ask what makes you come alive, because what the world needs is more people to come alive" and that is more true today than ever before.  Howard said that in the context of civil rights and while I don't know his exact meaning behind it, when I read that quote it means thriving.  You can't be apathetic and thrive, you can't have a 5 minute attention span and thrive.  You can't have fear imposed upon you, accept it and thrive.

Life is made of contrasting values and qualities and for the sake of time I'm going to use the contrast of Apathy and Thriving.  An apathetic individual has an absence of interest in or concern about emotional, social, spiritual, philosophical and of physical life in the world.  A thriving individual, for me anyway, grows and develops emotionally, socially, spiritually, philosophically and physically with all the challenges that exist to not grow.  If you're not growing you are dying.  Collectively today across the Earth, what state do you think is more prevalent?  Nix that, collectively today within your community, be it an office setting, school setting, religious congregational setting, or government setting, what is the prevalent state?

"It is what it is".  One of the most seemingly innocuous phrases used today.  That is apathy and you know what is very close to apathy energetically?  Helplessness!!  And what does helplessness lead to?  Illness.  There is biology with emotions and feelings that most people let alone a large portion of the medical community has no interest in.  Don't believe me, research it.  Epigenetic is a good place to start.

I have seen Apathy make people ill, literally.  And what do most of us do when we get ill?  Go to a doctor and get treatment in the way of a pill, or poison, or surgery.  We treat the symptom and for the most part don't even consider the origin of the symptom.  This mechanistic approach to health is apathy as well.  Nobody knows your body better than you if you take the time to listen, but when you "turn over" your health to an "Authority", the doctor, you have become passive.  Don't think so, next time you hear a medication commercial on TV or radio, listen to the disclaimers and side effects of "taking" the medication.......and then consider the Billions of dollars that are made off of these medications.  Or just consider the Placebo effect.  How about the Nocebo effect?

There is an intelligence and energy within each of us that is activated when we are in a state of Thriving or Love, and we lose access to it when we are apathetic or not growing.  When you cut your finger, you don't have to try to heal, there is no effort, it just heals.  When people have a spontaneous healing, there is no effort, most people relate a palpable shift and the most common word used by them is surrender.  When we get out of our heads and the cerebral effort to make things the way that we will be "happy", we surrender to a much greater power within us, the impulse to Thrive and be the Love that created us.

Take the Training wheels off!!!

Up until 10 days ago, I worked for a major Financial Institution for the past 23 years.  I'm proud to say it had nothing to do with the Mortgage debacle or economic collapse we have been experiencing the past 6 plus years.  It was an awesome place to work with great people, I was blessed to have some really good immediate managers and when I didn't report to a good one, they were at least tolerable.  I loved the people side of my work and was able to have great interactions on a daily basis.  The last two years were my most rewarding from developing people, working with a ridiculously talented management staff and delivering top performance results.

So why leave?  Well, my life is directed by my intuition.  What I mean by my life is every aspect of my life.  I listen to my intuition on everything, as a matter of fact I cultivate it and ask my intuition for direction, and it's never wrong.  I won't get into details but over the past 60 days, things have just fallen into place so much so that it was obviously time for me to leave my job.  How did I know all of these things were setting me up for my departure?  How it felt.  I felt like I was floating six inches off the ground.  Most of the time, I had an ear to ear grin on my face.

When I told my staff that I was leaving, the first question was "where are you going?".  My reply, "Nowhere", I'm taking the summer off, do some riding, go to some races, get my muse on and then in September I'll start thinking about what I want to do next.  I literally walked away from a job I had been at for 23 years with no idea what I was going to do next for income. 

The last day of work, my son came down the stairs to go to school.  He asked, "Your done today aren't you?".  I said "Yep", he then asked me "what are you going to do next?", and I told him "Epic Shit".  His reply was "I knew that".  My oldest son, when I told him I had left the company, said "Good for you, You're such a bad ass for being true to yourself".  That's about all the confirmation I need (not that I needed it) to know my decision was dead on.

I rarely remember dreams that I might have, but fairly frequently I'll have visions that come to me almost as stories or metaphors.  One that hit me strong and was the tipping point for me in making my decision was this.  When I was learning to ride a bicycle all those years ago as a youngster, I had training wheels on my first bike.  One day my dad grabbed my bike from me, told me he would bring it right back.  My mom asked what he was doing and my dad replied "taking the training wheels off so he can see what he can really do with the bike". 

I had a similar vision of this memory, a little different but very vivid.  It was just my dad and I, I was an adult, there was no bike and my dad said to me in a very nurturing but assertive way "Take the Fucking training wheels off!!!!".   I don't remember ever hearing my dad use a curse word, so it was almost like a degree of emphasis on a clear message to me to follow my bliss.  It was one of those moments of clarity that transcends all the crap we normally associate as being life and was the nudge that made up my mind on how I would move forward.         

I've always known that I would end up doing my own thing eventually, but never really could put my finger on it.  I love coaching, and based on feedback from those I work with, I'm pretty good at it.  I love speaking to groups about talent and personal growth, and I keep getting asked to come back, so I'm at least tolerable in that arena.  I've always believed the notion that the best way to learn is to teach, and I'm doing what I teach.  Not sure how that will all manifest for me, but I trust my intuition will provide me with the clarity to move forward.

Metaphorically speaking the training wheels were my awesome, very nicely paying job that I loved.  Taking them off is the catalyst to see, as my dad said way back when, "what I can really do".  This blog will serve as record of following my bliss and what doors opened up where there were only walls. 

Pretty liberating to answer the call to adventure trusting that the Universe will conspire on my behalf and allow me to see what my potential really is!!  My highest goal is to be connected with the flow of the Universe as it expands and progresses.  Feeling very connected right now!!!

You can't be neutral on a moving train!!!!

Howard Zinn coined that phrase.  Do you know who Howard Zinn was?  He was a great scholar and  social reformer who studied social disobedience.  His interest was in change through non-violent demonstration and small change leading to eventual big change.  We are so in need of big change right now as a species.  A change in our thinking in order for our existence to be more aligned with Life and progress and expansion.

Life is pulling us and in some cases dragging us unwittingly along in this needed change of how we think.  There is an evolutionary impulse prodding us to make the necessary changes for a sustainable existence on Mother Earth.  Some of us are balancing surrender to that impulse with the confidence that by surrendering we are being deliberate in facilitating expansion and sustainable progress.  Others are resisting this impulse and resting in a naive denial of who we are at our essence.

Do you believe in Spirit?  I mean really believe in Spirit, like as in an innate knowing that you are Spirit?  Most people would answer that question affirmatively, after all something like 92% of all humans believe there is something larger than us behind our existence.  Yet collectively, we act as if  we are separate from everything and asleep at the wheel most of the time.  We have those brief moments that we feel connected to each other or Spirit, but before too very long we relapse into a mechanistic daily grind.

Why is that?  Why is it that so many people can get some degree of connection to spirit on Sunday in their house of worship, and then Monday morning relapse into behavior that is so contradictory to the sermon they were taught just hours prior?  Just look at how Corporate America or our Governing bodies behave!!  Greed and Fear are the presiding states driving most of Corporate America and certainly our politicians.  But don't take my word for it, do some research on your own.

Most people won't take it upon themselves to do the research.  Most people won't even get curious about the way they feel.  Most people have turned over their free will to some "authority" and in essence said "tell me what to do, tell me how to think, tell me how I should behave" which is in essence thinking they are neutral on a moving train.  That is some scary stuff if that is the case.

The challenge is that taking ownership for your thoughts and connecting with your Spirit is pretty scary stuff, at least as it is perceived.  It's just so foreign to our conditioned way of thinking.  "Actions speak louder than words" is what we are taught, yet we forget that actions start from our thoughts and we end up doing some really stupid shit.

That is how deforestation takes place.  That is how literally destroying entire eco-systems happens.  That is how Bankers can commit criminal acts but face no punishment.  That is why there is more student debt now than credit card debt.  That is why dictators that the US subsidized with Billions of dollars were allowed to brutalize, torture and kill their own people all while the US government was completely aware of these atrocities.

The train is moving, and everyday that goes by is a stop we will never come back to.  What are you doing in your sphere of influence to apply the brakes.  You can't hold a thought pattern of "well I can't affect big government or big business or what is happening on the other side of the world".  That is thinking your neutral, when in fact you are contributing to the perpetuation of the problem.

So, how do you get out of neutral?  Go within, after all as one of my favorite spiritual teachers said, "If you do not go within, you go without".  Go within, get quite, and ask yourself, "What will you have me do?  What will you have me say?  What will you have me be?  If you will do this from an authentic place, you will get the answer.  Then act on it from your heart and see what happens, it will be miraculous!!!  But don't trust me, trust yourself!!!          

But, What about me?

What about you indeed!!  This is at the essence of every problem any person has and they don't even know it, because we get so wrapped up in our little world called our life and totally forget or tune out the idea we have a choice to change our perspective.  We forget that we could have a different thought and change everything in an instant.

Here is a real life, 100 pound example.  I work with a young lady with great talent, but is a little quirky.  One day she told me that she had a panic attack earlier and it was almost debilitating.  I told her if she experiences that again, come to me immediately and we can talk through it.  So, a few days went by and I was sitting in my office working on something when she walked in and plopped herself down in a chair and announced that she was having a panic attack.  She was visibly shaking, but clearly was open to discussing how to move out of that state.

I should mention that how I work with people is that I completely clear my mind of any expectation of outcome and I get curious about where the conversation goes.  Through dialogue, the solution emerges and its what I love most about what I do.  So, I asked her what she had been thinking about right before the onset of the attack.  She said her fiancée was leaving for a 4 day trip to the Midwest and she was not looking forward to being away from him that long.

Now if I had my "coach" or conventional counselor hat on, I might have gone into thinking that she has some esteem issues, or separation issues, or some other reason that caused her to physically react the way she was to the thought of being away from her fiancée for 4 days!!!  But the thought dropped into my mind "Whenever we experience angst, fear or any negative emotion really, our thoughts are centered on ourselves and knowing that, if we move our thinking to someone else, we can eliminate our problems".  She was already shaking her head when I asked her if that made sense.  She asked, "How do I do that?".

I told her to think about someone close to her that she could focus on.  She said she had a friend that just had a baby.  I asked her to close her eyes, and visualize her friend cradling her baby, maybe rocking the baby, and seeing her friend smiling with the bliss of being so close to her child.  She said she had that picture.  I asked her to visualize and "send" her friend and the baby her Love and picture it as pink energy surrounding the visualization of her friend and baby.   Now, I had never had that particular concept in my head before, I had no pre-conceived idea of what I was going to tell her when discussing her panic attack.

As I was walking her through this impromptu visualization, her shaking stopped, color began to return to her face, and I told her to just rest in that place and enjoy it for a moment.  She did and then opened her eyes and smiled.  I asked her how she felt, "so much Better" was her reply.  So we chatted a little bit about the shift that she experienced and the fact that anxiety or frustration or sadness is nothing more than our choosing that state over a much more positive state that is always available.

Sure, bad things happen in life, but its what we do with those things that determine how we experience them.  Do I get frustrated or down right pissed off at times?  Sure, but by being deliberate, I can very quickly move out of that state into a much more progressive state that also feels better, because I have made that process a practice.  By eliminating my thinking from be self centered, I allow wisdom from my higher self to come forth, and I have learned to listen to it because it always leads to awesome results or insights.

A mantra that I like to use is, "Do I want to be right or do I want to be at peace".  We tend to get so wrapped up in, "I'm going to do it my way, even if it means fighting and struggling and being miserable, I'm right and I'm going to pitch a tent in misery until everyone realizes I am right".  If we just stepped back and looked at the situation objectively, we could see it ain't working that way, and just maybe if we got curious about another way, the solution would raise its head.

The problem resides in the concept that we know how things "should be", you know, the way things work.  Well look around you, the way things "should be" and the "way things work" isn't working out so well.  The solution is "You could have a different thought" about the way things should be or how things work.  So do it, have a different thought and see what happens, it will be miraculous!!!  But don't trust me, experience it yourself!!!

What is wrong with humanity? I Am!!!

G. K Chesterson, an English Author was asked in the early 1900's by a London newspaper "What is wrong with the World?".  He answered very concisely, "I Am".   My gut tells me that what he meant can be distilled down by another quote of his, " Beware of no man more than yourself; we carry our worst enemies within us".  This is so true, but we refuse to even accept it might be accurate.  

Don't believe it?  Look around you at what is going on in society, around the world, and in nature.  We place so much "Value" on things outside of us that our society has become mentally ill collectively.  We are so easily accepting that an ideology or doctrine is "the truth" that we have checked our senses at the door and then wonder why so many people are miserable and are medicated with prescriptions let alone other substances or behaviors.

The Native Americans have a word they use for the behavior our society has embraced as the driving force of many people today.  It's "Wetico" and it means a sort of cannibalism where one culture eats or destroys another culture's way of life.   I think it pretty aptly describes what the Europeans did to the Native Americans when they came to North America.  The basis of the meaning is that Native Americans like many peoples of the world who feel a connection to nature and the earth and all living things believe that to own or hoard more than you need to survive is a mental illness.  Nature does not take more than it needs to survive, predators do not kill more than they need.  

I Am, being what is wrong with humanity means we need to wake up and see what we are doing to ourselves let alone all other living beings including Mother Earth.  If Human beings are living on Planet Earth 100 years from now, the term "Natural Resource" will be referenced only in teachings of un sustainability and the past.  They will live a dramatically different lifestyle and think dramatically different.  Darwin's "survival of the fittest" will have been replaced with a philosophy of "cooperation between species".  

Herman Hesse's book Demian has a passage that sheds light on our situation today.  The passage reads:

Each man had only one genuine vocation -- to find the way to himself.....his task was to discover his own destiny, not an arbitrary one, and live it wholly and resolutely within himself.  Everything else was only a would be existence, and attempt at evasion, a flight back to the ideals of the masses, conformity and fear of ones own inwardness.

Read it again, take some time to immerse yourself in its meaning.  Joseph Campbell referred to a life lived less than wholly as the waste land or the inauthentic life.  Collectively we are living in that waste land.  There is immense wealth (not abundance mind you) held by the vast minority of the population, yet thousands of children die of starvation every hour.  We have industries that are built on falsehoods that prop up "the economy".  Just those two scenarios are an example of attempts at evasion and flights back to the ideals of the masses, conformity and fear of our own power.

I'll leave this post with a passage from Martin Buber (tapped in dude) talking about Grand Will as opposed to the Puny Unfree Will:

The free man is he who wills without arbitrary self-will.

He believes in destiny, and believes that it stands in need of him.  It does not keep him in leading strings, it awaits him, he must go to it, yet does not know where it is to be found.  But he knows that he must go out with his whole being.  The matter will not turn out according to his decision; but what is to come will come only when he decides on what he is able to will.  He must sacrifice his puny, unfree will, that is controlled by things and instincts, to his grand will, which quits defined for destined being.  Then, he intervenes no more, but at the same time he does not let things merely happen.  He listens to what is emerging from himself, to the course of being in the world; not in order to be supported by it, but in order to bring it to reality as it desires.  

He listens to what is emerging from himself (you have to go within to do this), to the course of being in the world; not in order to be supported by it, but in order to bring it to reality as it desires (we are not in this world, we are part of it).

We are in the middle of a Mass extinction.......

the kind that happens every 65 million years or so.  We (Humans) are the cause of it and we are not even aware of it.  Don't believe me?  Do some research.  Since modern man and the industrial revolution made its entrance into Earth's history, the number of species that go extinct every year is in the thousands and increases every year.  Don't believe me?  Do some research!!!

The good news is our world is pretty frickin' resilient.  Look at how the Gulf has rebounded after the BP oil catastrophe.  It's not totally back but is recovering much nicer than most people would have ever expected.  In spite of all our misguided efforts to completely destroy Mother Earth, she is still providing us everything we need to survive.  Thank You Mother Earth!!!

I was reading one of my favorite books this morning while pondering my next chapter.  I am accepting the call to adventure for something new and leaving what has been a great experience for me the past 23 years.  The chapter I was reading was on the underlying intelligence of life and specifically, how every cell in our body contains the DNA for the larger organism known as us.  Yet, as the cell matures it has the wisdom or intelligence to develop as a cell to be part of our heart or eye or finger.  The cell knows it is part of the whole we call our body, it knows it is connected to every other cell and likely every other thing in the Universe and it fulfills a role that completes the whole.

This cell regenerates pretty frequently and does so over and over in the body's physical existence.  It regenerates perfectly by understanding its role as a part of the whole and it releases the exact RNA (the blueprint from the DNA that tells it what to regenerate as) it needs to fulfill that role as part of the whole.  A problem arises when the cell loses its social identity and what its role is within the whole.  It reverts to blind undifferentiated cell division and begins taking over the area of the body it resides in.  Science has proven (Look it up, do some research, don't just believe me) that the cell does this due to its perception of the environment it lives in.  It loses touch with the guiding principle that it is interconnected with every other cell and is as important as any other cell.  It is no longer cooperating with the whole when the environment is not status quo or normal.  When a cell does this we call it Cancer.

I only bring this up, because it is a great analogy for what is happening to the Earth and Humanity.  Think of Earth as a cell in the body of the Universe.  Whats happening in Syria, or The Ukraine, or our government for that matter?  We are killing ourselves, little pockets of humanity killing each other for no reason congruent with us all being connected.  Look at all the atrocities that have taken place in just the last century.  It's almost blind luck we have not destroyed ourselves already, we certainly have enough nuclear missiles.

Take Religion for instance.  In human history, the sideways thinking people have about religion has resulted in more people being killed as a result of differences in beliefs about which religion is true than any other reason combined.  How does that happen?  The perceptions of the environment of those involved in "Religion", and no one religion has a monopoly on this unhealthy approach to  religiosity.    Anyone that says "my belief is the only true way" is cancerous to the whole because that is contentious and creates fear and angst or rebellion, none of which are healthy progressive states for a cell or Human to reside in.

Now Calm Down!!!  It's just a metaphor, don't get all sideways on me.  If that last paragraph pissed you off, I made my case and you can now see how hundreds of thousands if not millions of people have been killed in the name of God, or religion.  I personally believe there is truth in most religions when you look at the teachings as metaphors rather than absolutes.  We are as a society metaphorically challenged unfortunately.

So how can we as a world or humanity become Cancer free?  Simply changing our thoughts.  Having a different thought about our circumstances and understanding that circumstances in our life happen for a reason the meaning of which is up to us to determine.  I don't have to agree with you in order for me to like or respect you.  But if you try to steal from me, I'm removing you from my life and I may have you arrested.  Disagreements do not need to end in injury or death, but you also do not need a sledge hammer up side the head before you know its time to move on.  Choose your thoughts wisely, more on that next time.

Surviving or Thriving? Which are you doing?

You are actively engaged in one, so which is it?  Thriving is growing and progressing and is our nature.  Surviving is to remain alive or in existence and is a state that is not natural to us.  Growth and expansion are natural to us, and concepts we must engage in.  In reality, if we are not growing and expanding, we are dying.  Don't do that!!

Look around you!   You know people that are dying.  People that are in relationships that they don't want to be in, or in Jobs that they hate, or listening to a sermon that they do not agree with.  People complaining about this or that.  And they stay in those situations because they believe they have no alternative.  They actually believe that!!  I actually had a woman tell me she was staying in her marriage because if she got a divorce that would be her second divorce and she didn't want that label. That's insane.

Why do you think so many people are medicated today?  Do you know that more people die everyday from overdoses or mixture of prescribed medicine than illegal drugs?  That's messed up.  The human body is a pretty ridiculous organism when you think about it.  It regenerates itself over and over, yet when we have an ailment, our mind set is to take pills or drugs.  We look outside of us for a remedy when we have everything we need within us.

Take the woman that does not want to have the "Label" of being divorced twice.  That simple thought confines her to a life she is not fulfilled in, a life that she is just surviving or spending time in.  A life that while she bides her time in, eliminates the potential for a life she could be thriving in and a relationship that could be part of that thriving.  She could have a different thought.  She could not care what others might say or think about her two failed marriages, and a whole new myriad of potentials could present themselves.

Staying in a job you hate because you make a good income?  That just eliminates all of the potential things you could be doing if you were not spending time in a job you hate.  And by the way, when you do a job you don't like, you are not doing your best work.  Who knows what you would accomplish if you were thriving by growing and enjoying your days rather than biding your time for a paycheck.  Great things do not come from survival.  Great things come from thriving.  Ideas that have never been thought come from a thriving mindset.

So, how do you move out of a survival mindset to a thriving mindset.  Question everything you are doing, and I mean everything.  Why do you sit in front of the TV as much as you do?  Why when you feel less than comfortable do you begin cleaning, or go shopping, or jump on the Internet or alter how you feel with any other substance or activity?  Because your not growing, you have become stagnant which is not a natural state for us, so you numb those feelings.  The problem is you can't just numb bad feelings, you numb all feelings and we are feeling beings, no pun intended.

Ask yourself the question;  What do I want?  Do you want to survive or do you want to Thrive?  Thriving stretches you, it will scare you, it will provide you the opportunity to feel every aspect of the human experience.  Embrace that, Immerse yourself in the never ending cycle of separation, initiation and return.  If you don't know what that is, find out.....that's growing!

Maybe your life is not where you want it, maybe your in a crappy relationship, maybe your job doesn't stimulate you, maybe you are tired of the sermon you're being taught.  What are you going to do about it?  Crap happens, but make no mistake, you participated in it happening.   After all, there you are!!  What are you going to do about it?  What thoughts are you going to change about it to create a life of thriving?  Change your thinking about life and you change your Life, and that is miraculous!!!

Maybe you are more fulfilled than you ever imagined.  Awesome, keep it going but know that at some point in time that could change.  And when it does, just keep in mind (literally) you are the only one to determine what that means.  The only meaning life has is the one you give it.  Give it an empowering one!!  Please, we need more of those.  Its the difference between Thriving and Dying!!!

Fake it til you make it.....

Are you kidding me?  You may have heard this mantra, many use it as part of affirmations.....and if you have in the past, stop it right now!!!  "Fake it til you Make it" is a product of limited thinking and beliefs, not unlike a number of other well intended affirmations.

Do you believe you are connected to the source of all that is, was or will ever be?  If you do, and I hope you do, what would you ever have to fake?  Fake it til you make it is like telling yourself a lie at worst and at best it's not being genuine.  We get programmed to believe we are substantially less than the divine spiritual beings connected to God, Source, or the Universe (or whatever you are most comfortable with) by daily experiences and messages we take for granted to be real.  So faking it til we make it almost feels empowering for many people.

Think about it.  The definition of "Fake" is:  A thing that is not genuine; a forgery or sham.  Why in the world would anyone in their right mind think being a sham was beneficial.  Only someone that is disconnected from their True Self, their Divine Infinite Potential Self.  Far too many people do not give weight to the power of their thoughts.  Thoughts create form on many different levels and most people have no discernment to the thoughts they allow themselves to have.

Much like pinballs, a lot of people bounce off of bumpers (experiences) that might make them feel good or might make them feel bad or even depressed rather than being deliberate about the thinking they give to the experiences.  Most people think life happens to them and events are random and some are "good" and some are "not so good".  Well Life does happen, but the events of your life are neither good nor bad, they just are.  Your thoughts about the events are the only meaning these events have.  Do you understand that?

Christ got this, Victor Frankl got this, Nelson Mandela got this.  Life happened around them, but they chose the meaning to assign to the events of their lives.  That is powerful stuff.  Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years for speaking his mind about the inequities between human beings in South Africa just because of the color of their skin.  27 years!!!  Just think of all the limiting belief thinking he could have engaged in during that time as opposed to the unlimited potential based thinking he did engage in.  He became friends with his captors, he actually taught them empowering concepts of thought.  And then look at the good that he brought into the world after being released.  Was he bitter?  No, he was humble and he brought a nation together.  What he did was miraculous, because a miracle is just a different thought.

What limited thinking do you hap hazzardly engage in?  Just look at what keeps showing up in your life.  And then, look at how you react to what keeps showing up in your life.  Is it serving you in a positive way?  If not, what thoughts could you have that the experience would serve you in a positive way?  Every experience is an opportunity for you the teacher to help you the student to learn more about your potential.  And both the teacher and student are engaged at all times, it just comes down to what you are learning.  You are either learning more about who your True Self is or you are learning more that takes you further away from who your True Self is.

Every moment you choose the degree that you are deliberate about what you teach and what you learn, and its important because when you choose to learn more about you, the divine being with infinite potential, your actions then teach others.  As Howard Thurman said "don't ask what the world needs, ask what makes you come alive, because what the world needs is more people to come alive".  What he meant by coming alive is being aligned with our True Nature and Self.

Don't fake anything, be authentic, be deliberate and come alive.  We need that for everyone's sake!!!  

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You the teacher.....

are always learning, or you're not.  It depends where you are at in your mind.  The True You that has never been born and will never die is vastly wise.  The True You was as wise as always when you were an infant and as you grew into adolescence and then into adulthood.  That is why there are child prodigies and geniuses that reveal their brilliance at much later stages in their life.  The timing of wisdom to come forth is about allowance, its always with you, its closer to you than your breath.  The question is do you allow it come forth.

Sometimes as a write, I struggle to articulate the concepts that I have in my thoughts.  Words just don't seem to due justice in describing concepts of the eternal ineffable wisdom that makes up our essence.  So when I say "It depends where you are at in your mind" to describe if you are in a state of allowing learning or not, its not nearly enough.  Think of it this way;  Have you ever read a book for the second or third or twentieth time and something hit you like it never has before, like an epiphany?  And you sit back and think, why has that never sunk in or resonated with me like it did just now?   The ability to recognize truth is always with you, its just a matter of if we allow that ability to be present through our thoughts.

For as long as I can remember, I have always had an affinity for Joseph Campbell's work.  I even grew up in a town called Campbell.  Coincidence?  When I was younger, I rarely watched PBS, but as I was channel surfing, invariably I would come across a Bill Moyers special on PBS called "The Power of Myth" with Joseph Campbell and I was almost spell bound as I watched it.  It felt very comfortable and almost nourishing to watch and listen to Campbell talk about Myth's and the Heroes Journey, even though intellectually I had no clue what it meant for me or how to apply it in my life.  In retrospect, I now know my True Self was creating that curiosity and warmth I felt as I watched Campbell and Moyers discuss the meaning behind the myths.

The message resonated with my heart rather than my intellect.  The teacher was appearing as the student became ready.  At the time I really didn't understand the meaning behind the message, but understood the feeling I had about it.  It was the feeling of truth and it serves me well every time I make note of it as it swells up within me more and more often as time goes by.  By being curious and not making an effort the student and the teacher collaborate internally within me to gain the clarity that directs me to see through the many veils of rational thought that are misleading.  This collaboration potential exists within everyone.

There is a calling within each of us to move toward clarity of who we are and each of us will answer that calling at some point.  The timing for recognizing the call is determined by a willingness to hear and respond to the calling.  What triggers this recognition?  It can be different and unique for each individual yet it is identical in origin.  The only requirement to recognize the calling is to have a different thought.  So much of what we take to be real only exists because we take it to be real based upon our thoughts.  So as you have a different thought, what you take to be real changes, and what you take to be real is what exists.  

Rather than moving through time in a belief system that facilitates infinite possibilities, so many people move through time operating in a belief system of limits.  These limits are the veils that we take to be real and blur our vision of possibility.  Having a different thought can focus your vision to cut through these veils and allow your truth to be seen with the Clarity that is your True Self.  Having a different thought is the portal through which the infinite potential that is you can come forth.  It really is as simple as that.  And how awesome is that?

As I mentioned in my last post about Gabrielle Bernstein's lesson, and I love the way this flows, "You don't have to get your way, you only need to get out of your way".  How do you get out of your way?  Change your thinking!!!  Be your own Teacher by being the Student.

    

Identity Theft can kill!!!

That's right, Identity theft can kill you at its worst and at its best can make you miserable.  Fortunately, I'm not talking about Identity theft of your Social Security number or credit file, though that can be horrible.  I'm talking about your true authentic Self being stolen.  And who steals it?  The only person that can, Yourself!!  It's not really stealing in the conventional sense of the word, you don't take it away never to be found again.  But your true self is stolen when you don't live it.  When you repress it rather than expressing it.

Authentic means; Real or Genuine, True or Accurate.  Ask yourself this question.  On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the best, how real or genuine were you yesterday?  Seriously, how true were you to your True Self yesterday?  In my experience, the vast majority of people severely over rate themselves, including me.  Why?  I believe the reason why is that we don't take the time to even consider who our True Self is for the most part.  We have been conditioned into uncomfortable numbness you crazy diamond (little play on Pink Floyd).

That uncomfortable numbness is a state that we are not even consciously aware of, but it doesn't really feel that great, certainly not as great as we are capable of experiencing "great" as.  We have allowed ourselves to be conditioned to see life working a particular way, and then we adapt to that way thinking it will be better when we do.  Essentially, life happens to us and we deal with it the best we can.  It's like a train moving down a track and we are along for the ride and we react to the scenery as we pass through it.  Don't think so, look around you.

Just take the train of the economy, we are all on it cruising along living our lives for the most part oblivious to the fact it cannot be sustained.  Why does the US government need to develop a new fighter jet called the F35 for a projected cost of over $400 Billion dollars?  Why do 30,000 people die every year in the United States during a medical procedure they don't need?  Why is the United States the most medicated population in the world?  To Prop up an economy that cannot be sustained, that's why.  And most of the participants are unaware of their participation in the dis-function.

My point is not political, my point is we think we are oblivious to a unsustainable way of living.  As Howard Zinn said "You can't be neutral on a moving train", and by being along for this ride, we are uncomfortably numb.  Our True Self sees what is happening, our Ego does not, and there is a tug of war of sorts.  The True Self isn't worried, she knows all will work out regardless of how the external circumstances play out.  But in between, it just does not feel right.  Angst, anxiety, neurosis, disease, addictions all manifest out of this place of not being aligned with our true self but not understanding how to alleviate that "Not right" feeling.

Whats the answer then?  Well, the good news is you only have to be concerned with you, the rest will take care of itself.  One of my favorite teachers, Gabrielle Bernstein posted a video today about a lesson she learned on her way to Brazil.  The lesson was, "You don't need to get your way, you only need to get out of your way".  For me that means, little ego, step aside and allow your True Self to come forth.  The more you do that, the more of a positive impact you have on those you interact with.  And its as easy as changing your thoughts.  Seriously its that easy.

So do it, spend a little time on you today.  Just sit and quite the mind, do Yoga, exercise, write, do your art, do what centers you......and ask sincerely, "What would you have me do today?".  And just let it be, you don't need to make an effort to get the message......what will happen is, you will notice yourself in a state somewhat less than positive, and you will change your thinking and your whole experience will shift.  You will have taught yourself it is always about your thinking as the cause and the world as the effect.  You, the teacher has just taught You, the Student and that is a miracle!!!!

In the classroom of relationships.....

The teacher is the student!!  Christ knew this, Buddha knew this as did Muhammad and every other great sage throughout human history.  Christ wasn't just a Christian, Buddha wasn't just a Buddhist and Muhammad wasn't just a Muslim.  They were teachers and students of Love, they taught Love and as they taught, they learned more about the power and divinity of Love.

They also knew that every encounter with another person was not by chance, it was for the purpose of learning.  And every encounter you and I have with another is not by chance, it provides us with the opportunity to be willing to learn and teach about love.  Love, the opposite of fear and the teaching is not always overt as in the conveying of a concept.  A lot of time it is resting in the feeling of Love and the impact that can have on the interaction.  Maybe it is compassion that is expressed rather than judgement.  As you do that, you are learning more about the power of Love and that it is always a choice.

You have likely heard the phrase "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear".  That can happen in an instant with your willingness to learn just by changing your thoughts or perception.  Every thought you have creates form on some level, but at times it is difficult to be aware of this and choose deliberately where your thoughts come from.  This very much impacts if the student is ready.  In a previous post I mentioned a person at my work that irritates the shit (sorry) out of me.  Well, that irritation is my choice to reside in and even to allow, so I have chosen to make my relationship with this person one of my greatest learning opportunities and things nothing short of miracles are taking place almost on a daily basis if not hourly with this change in perspective.

Before I had this revelation, I had made up my mind to remove myself from the situation of being influenced by this person.  In essence, I had accepted that they influenced me in a way that irritated me, that I was the victim and I was going stop that by moving on.  It finally dawned on me, "Oh, Hell no", I am the only one in control of my thoughts.  This person wasn't irritating me, my thoughts about the person were irritating me and it was a lesson I needed to learn.  If I left the situation, another, likely more irritating person would come into my experience.

It came down to deciding, did I want to be right or have peace.  When I was frustrated by this person, I wanted to be right, as in "I was right and they were wrong".  I was judging them and nothing good can come from that.......but I was right and that was most important to my ego.  Peace is so much easier and expansive but only if we are willing to let go of "Being Right".  Peace is where the Student became ready and the teacher taught.  This person was my greatest teacher as I learned a great lesson about myself.  The irony of the whole thing, was "being right" was just a struggle I was having in my own mind.

Here is the real beauty in this experience, the teacher/student realtionship is internal to me, as David Bohm would say it is a part of the implicit order.  Does this person think of themselves as teaching me?  Probably not, but who cares?  What I get from my willingness to come from a new perspective is awesome for me and those I interact with becasue I am better for having changed my thoughts.

Be the student in order to be the teacher and then teach, not necessarily by conveying concepts but by living from Love and Peace and Truth.  Everything else is just an illusion you either buy or dismiss.  And you dismiss it by having a different thought.  Do that!!!

Which is easier?

Being right or being peaceful?  Many times being right entails judgement, being critical of a differing view or defending your position.  Judgement, being critical or defending your position are never easy feelings, but for a lot of people they have become more habitual than being peaceful or content.  In my experience, for most people it becomes their default setting of operating mode.  And it's backwards.

It's so much easier to be in a state of ease, peace, and contentment but we lose connection with the effectiveness of these states because of conditioned beliefs about the way life works.  Beliefs are nothing more than stories we tell ourselves or someone else tells us and at some point we take them to be real.  People used to believe that the earth was flat and that the Universe including the Sun revolved around the earth.  So, what are today's "the earth is flat" beliefs?

What about disease can be predicted by family genetics?  What about any one of the organized religions has a monopoly on Truth?  These two alone will set a lot of people off.  More people have died as a result of differences in religious beliefs than any other reason in the history of mankind.  Is that progressive or even sustainable?  95% of humans are genetically perfect, and research has shown that the environment of a family is predictive of family disease like Heart, Diabetes and even Cancer as opposed to genetics.  Children adopted into families contract these diseases at the same rates as the adoptive family members even though their own biological families have no history of the disease.

So, just for grins, just for fun, what do you suppose life would be like if every human being believed that we are all connected to each other, as a matter of fact, what if we believed we are all connected to every living thing?  Think about it.  How would we interact with each other differently?  How would we treat the environment?  How would we treat animals?  Would planes fly into buildings?  Would school shootings be happening that the rate they are?  Would we build a fence between the US and Mexico?

I could be wrong, but I think we would be living life in a completely different manner.  We would treat each other as we would want to be treated, you know the golden rule.  So much of today's culture and structure would be obsolete.  Our entire economy would be different.  Everything we did, would be more conscious.  A lot of the structures we have are falling apart as a result of the Universe, GOD or Source being self correcting towards a sustainable and progressive way of life.  As individuals that are part of the Universe, we either resist, or we get on board and align with life.

My Son and I went and saw the Movie "Lone Survivor" this past weekend.  The most profound messsage that I received from the movie was the action taken by one Afghanistan tribal leader and consequently his village to protect Marcus Luttrell, the lone Navy Seal survivor.  Pashtunwali is a tradition that is thousands of years old that is made up of principles, two of which are Hospitality and Asylum.  These principles saved Luttrell's life, a complete stranger and someone that just by helping him endangered the entire village.  These two principles are very much grounded in all of us being connected.

When you Align with Life, Life aligns with you and the Universe conspires on your behalf to move you in a progressive and forward path.  When you resist Life, the Universe kicks you in the ass or completely upends you, and unfortunately too many people attribute that to life happening to them.  Every relationship is a lesson for the taking, so step up and learn the wisdom of each lesson with the curiosity that paints a clear picture for you.  That Curiosity resides in peace, grace, contentment and Love rather than judgement, Fear and being right.  And it really is a lot easier.  

Every Relationship is an assignment.

If that is true, that every relationship is an assignment, and it is.....then what is the lesson?  What rings true for me is the lesson is to return to Love.  And that is not some Pollyanna new age philosophy because if you think about it, what problems exist when you are in a pure state of experiencing Love?

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a French Priest and philosopher and one of my favorite quotes from him is;  "Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, tides and gravity we shall harness for God the energies of Love and then for the second time in the history of the world, Man will have discovered fire".  When Man discovered fire as an element and how to create fire, it profoundly changed life for man as you can imagine.

The portion of the quote I want to focus on in this post is "we shall harness for God the energies of Love.....".  Harness means to control and make use of, so in the context of the quote, think of it terms of "we shall make use of for God the energies of Love".  How many people do you think look at Love in that context?  In my experience, most people think of Love as something that happens to them through their experiences in relationships.

Love is who and what we are.  As humans, we experience life through our emotions and on the spectrum of emotions, on one end is Love and on the other is Fear.  Fear is an illusion, as in False Evidence Appearing Real (I didn't come up with that analogy, but I like it).  Your True Self, or inner guide, or Holy Spirit or however you refer to your essence that has never been born and will never die, in other words, your connection to GOD, the Universe or Source is Pure Love.  We always have access to our True Self, but for most people we rarely deliberately allow our True Self to come forth.

So why do we spend so much time coming from fear?  For the opportunity to deliberately allow in our True Self, because when you choose to move from fear to Love, the experience is nothing short of Bliss or ecstasy and the feeling is amplified ten fold.  Don't take my word for it, try it.  The next time you interact with someone that annoys you, or frustrates you, or you feel is attacking you, or judging you.....say to yourself, "I could have a different thought, I could allow Love into my thoughts about this situation" and see what happens.  It will be miraculous because that is exactly what a miracle is, a change in perspective.

I'll give you an example.  Several years ago, I sat in a staff meeting at my work place.  The discussion  began to get a little contentious as it sometimes can as people including myself began defending their positions on a topic.  It dawned on me how unproductive this was, and I sat back for a few seconds (literally 15 seconds) and just observed the meeting.  I then began to envision a violet haze (the color I associate with Love) within the room and began mentally sending Love to everyone in the room.  Literally, one person who is traditionally very rigid in their position said "I don't see it that way, but I don't think I understand where you are coming from, can you help me understand your position".  It was one of those moments when nobody knows what to think and then just like that, the entire room's collective energy changed to collaborative.  It was awesome!!!

Had I harnessed the energies of Love?  I'm convinced of it, but who cares, it was awesome and the conversation then became productive.  Now, think about when we were all defending our positions.  Where was that coming from?  Fear, the illusion that in a corporate environment I need to be right.  The illusion that I need to appear to be a major contributor.  How is that progressive or based in growth and evolving?  It's not, its based on False Evidence Appearing Real that my worth is derived by how many times I am right.  Something to make note of, I had no personal bias or preconceived notion of what I wanted to happen when I visualized the Violet haze and sending Love to everyone.  Love is not personal, its Universal.  At that moment, it just felt better than defending my position on the topic.

So try this out the next time you find yourself in the classroom of a relationship.  Just start that internal dialogue with yourself "I could have a different thought, I could allow Love into my thoughts about this situation" and see what happens.  I promise it will be miraculous, because a miracle is just a change in thoughts or perception.  That's all.

So to close I will leave you with one of my new rituals for the new year.  I learned this from one of my teachers.  I get quiet at the beginning of the day which has somehow become lately anywhere between 3AM and 5AM......but at any rate, I get quiet and I have that internal dialogue and I ask my True Self or inner guide;  "What would you have me do today?  Who would you have me be today?  "How would you have me serve today?".  And then I just move through the day, and I have to say I am much more in tune with growth and progress and less involved in resisting and fear....and its pretty freaking awesome how my experience changes because I am much more in tune with my True Self.  Try it, I dare you!!!

"Don't ask what the world needs.....

Ask what makes you come alive and go do that.  Because what the world needs is people who have come alive".  -  Howard Thurman

As humans we are at an epoch in Earth's history.  Systems and structures are not working.  The economy, governance, ecology, society are all stressed and not doing very well.  I don't subscribe to conspiracy theories and I'm not a doom and gloomer, but I am a realist.  Things either work or they don't and while in the immediate perspective chaos is at bay today (kind of), these systems are not sustainable. I think collectively we have become uncomfortably numb.

For me, to come alive as Dr. Thurman referenced means to thrive.  Too many of us are existing in that numbness which is not very comfortable, but it is numb.  How do we transition from existing to thriving?  Sobriety.  Sobriety in much more than the sense generally attributed to that word meaning "not being drunk", but being drunk or numbed from everything that keeps us from being centered.

Centered for me is being authentic to your Self.  What I have learned and am still learning is that being authentic is not a destination that you will ever get to.  It's a journey that allows you to learn about yourself and others.  I learn every time I have a coaching session with someone.  What I learn is something new about me or something that I need to attend to.  I learn something new every time I get frustrated or even down right pissed off at someone else......as long as I allow myself to learn.

Let me provide an example.  I interact with someone on a regular basis that comes from a thought process that is so diametrically opposed to my way of thinking (and I'm not saying one is better than the other).  This person is very left side brain based and comes from a very black and white, data driven and analytical perspective.  I am very intuitive, love the messiness of life and believe most data is inherently flawed and taken out of context.  This person irritates the shit our of me.  Sorry, I can't articulate it any other way.

It's very easy for me to react and just reside in the irritation I feel for this person, but I know that takes me out of my "A" game, it takes me out of alignment with being centered with my True Self.  I believe that the world is a classroom and every person is an assignment.  So I began looking at this assignment from the perspective of what I can learn.  I also believe to some extent that every person is me as we are all connected, so if they are irritating me, I am irritated with myself.

Without getting into the details through introspection, I learned that I was not being as authentic as I needed to be.  I was playing small and not attending to all aspects of my life.  Rather than fully cultivating my spirit, my emotional, physical and community aspects of myself, I was avoiding them.  In order to not play small I needed to spend more time cultivating a connection with my True Self.  The Self that has never been born and will never die, the self that can be in this world but not of it.  The Self that knows by aligning with life, life aligns with me.

This entails a change in my routines or rituals, physical conditioning, mind conditioning, intuitive conditioning, nourishment and essentially how I spend my time cultivating my true spirit.  More conscious living in every aspect of life to allow my true self to emerge more often.  Being much more discerning about what actions serve me in this endeavor and eliminating the ones that don't move me forward.

From a Heroes Journey perspective, Separation occurred for me when I felt the irritation.  Initiation was when I recognized the irritation and the need for me to look at it.  Return occurred when I realized the changes I needed to make and began acting upon them.  It wasn't the other person that irritated me, it wasn't that they needed to change, it was that I needed to change.  That change in perspective is the miracle, because that is all miracles are.  A change in thought.

What miracles are you creating today?  And maybe more importantly is the question, what lessons in the classroom of life are you ready for?  Set your phone alarm for 3 specific times during the day with a reminder to recognize the lessons that are ready for us to learn when we move out of numbness.  Seriously, the world needs more people that are learning from the lessons of life!!!

Grow up because chances are you have been dumbed down

A little play on words there with the title of this post but research shows this is true.  Several decades ago Harvard University did some research on measuring the intelligence of toddlers.  They developed a whole battery of tests on different faculties such as music, math, communication, etc.  Once developed they began testing toddlers and to their surprise the vast majority of toddlers tested out at genius level across the board.  The developers of the tests thought something was wrong, so they involved Howard Gardner and the School of Behavioral Sciences to try to validate the accuracy of the results.  The consensus was the tests were valid for measuring intelligence.

The results were not what was expected, because why would a random group of toddlers test out at genius level collectively as they had (even from such close proximity to Harvard).  So the group decided to follow the test subjects as they aged and continue testing them.  Long story short was that as the group, and subsequent groups tested got older, their proficiency in the different faculties diminished.  To the extent that by age 16, less then 10% continued to test out at genius level and by age 18 it was less than 2%.  Why?

One of the research students that helped in administering the study, decided to do some research on the few subjects that continued to test out high on the tests.  What she found was a common denominator.  They were all kind of odd balls.  They dressed differently, they were a little socially different, they just didn't really "fit in" with everyone else.  And something else common amongst them was, they didn't really care about fitting in.

What is the moral of the story and study?  The majority of subjects just like the majority of the general population, adapt to the should's and norms of society, school, family and in doing so, lose access to the natural innate intelligence, creativity and wisdom that we all have access to.  The odd balls have an authenticity about them that facilitates the access to this wisdom and intelligence.

So what are we missing if we have adapted to what we think is expected in order for us to fit in? A lot, and its unique for each of us.  In my experience, being authentic allows your purpose to come through you naturally rather than efforting to make something happen.  It sounds almost counter intuitive, but if you have to struggle to create something or make something happen, the thing you are trying to create is not aligned with your purpose.  After all, we all know if you work hard, your hard work will pay off, right?  Depends what pay off you are looking for.

Everyday is an opportunity to "Grow Up" from being "Dumbed Down" by losing touch with your true self.  The morning is a great time to start the process of aligning with your true self, by just being.  Meditate, do Yoga, exercise or write to yourself.  Or just observe your thoughts on your commute to an from work or while running errands.  Take notice of how many positive or neutral thoughts you have as opposed to negative of judgmental thoughts.  If you are like most people, you will be blown away.  Think about it, if you make life choices based upon fitting in or being admired, your life is being guided by judgements of what is acceptable or desirable.  Judgments are rarely accurate or true and are fear based and lacking Love.

As you begin changing your thinking from a "fitting in" perspective to a "being true to yourself" perspective, you are moving into vulnerability.   There is a brutal honesty about being vulnerable.  As Brene' Brown has established in her work, being vulnerable is where creativity is born.  for those of us that have adapted and dumbed ourselves down, vulnerability is the doorway to our innate creativity and wisdom.  It's a process and while it scares the hell out of most people, being vulnerable is a release of all the crap we pile on ourselves by working to fit in.    Being authentic is when miracles happen because a miracle is just a change in perspective from Fear to Love.