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.