Monthly Archives: January 2009

Shadow Acting

Have you ever stopped to realize that something in your experience wasn’t exactly quite what you thought it was? An event or a situation that you interpreted one way, but as you look back, it takes on a new light?

For example, think of something in your past, something that happened, say five or ten years ago. And imagine as you were, just before that situation took place. And now imagine yourself as you were going through that situation. How does that feel? What do you see? What do you hear?

What meanings do you choose to give the events unfolding around you, now, as you remember what happened to you in your past? What was the one element of that experience that you chose to define it for you? Was it the way something appeared, or what somebody said, or something about the way somebody looked at you? Perhaps it was the way you felt afterwards?

For example, once I saw a guy talking into a mirror at the gym. He was standing really close, and he was really animated.  Talking with fluidly changing and almost chaotic facial expressions, arms flailing around. The meaning that I chose to give to that situation was that the guy was crazy. I could have given another meaning, since I really didn’t know what was going on, but that was my best, my quickest guess.

Now what happens if you take your earlier situation, and then move forward in time  a couple of years, or even right up until recently. Can you find another similarly structured situation, but with a completely different meaning that you decided to give it? What was different? Why was the second situation, which was similar to the first, different in the meaning that you gave it? Were there different, more familiar people involved? Was the setting more comfortable? Had the weather changed for the better?

In my situation, I saw another guy talking to himself in the mirror. I didn’t know him, but I surmised he was practicing for a performance, because he was standing outside of a theater that I go to sometimes. I saw two different guys, that I’d never met before doing the same thing, but I gave them two different meanings. One guy was loony, and one guy was a professional actor practicing his craft.

What was different for you?

One of the more interesting things about this, is that as you increase your understanding of your experience, and naturally apply different realizations, it follows that you can vastly increase your potential for flexibility in your perception. And when you can apply this flexibility in real-time, so you discover different choices for the meanings that you used to give automatically, your world will astoundingly open up.

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The Power of Focus

Drifting aimlessly. Meandering here and there. Wandering up and down, back and forth, left and right. Not traveling in any discernable direction. Seemingly without aim or purpose. Reacting, rather than acting. Reacting automatically to an environment that is as unpredictable as the earth is old. These are your thoughts. And unless you learn to control your thoughts, your thoughts will control you.

Unfortunately if you allow that to happen, which all too many people do, you place yourself under the control of a infinitely complex feedback loop to which you have no option other than follow blindly, and hope everything works out.  You know too well that it rarely does.

And the worse part is that those times when it doesn’t work out, although it seems like the responsibility lies outside your wonderfully developed mind-body biological system, in truth, the responsibility lies with you. And only you. I believe it was Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin that said it best.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be that way. God, Mother Nature, the wonderfully random process of Darwinian Natural Selection, whoever or whatever it was that created you, didn’t create such a magnificent collection of cells and bones and muscles, and your fantastically powerful brain to just wander aimlessly through life.

You were created for a purpose, a reason, a destination. You are a missile with a highly sophisticated guidance system that scientiests are just now starting to understand. And known to only a few people, and put into practice by even fewer, is one of the easiest ways to harness the awesome power of your mind. To develop the power of concentration.

Remember when you were a kid, and you or some of your friends would play with a magnifying glass? You could take a very inexpensive magnifying glass, even one made of cheap plastic, and use it to focus the passive rays of the sun into incredible power. Power to burn, power to start fires. That power was harnessed by taking only a minuscule sliver of the suns total power and focusing it. The sun is a giant ball of fire, much bigger than the Earth fueled by the process of nuclear fusion, changing hydrogen atoms into helium atoms. One substance, one process, and enough energy to power an entire planet through eon after eon.

Your brain is infinitely more complex and intricate than that. Infinitely more rich. Infinitely more resourceful. The sun produces heat, and fire, and radiation. Your brain can produce ideas, which can turn into cities, art, cathedrals, poems, songs, equations. Whatever you can imagine, you can create. And you have the power to focus yourself.  Strengthen your mind so you focus your thoughts only on what supports and enlightens you. Focus your thoughts only on ideas that can increase happiness and abundance for you and those you love.

How to do that? How to gain that elusive power that through simple practice will give you an edge almost unheard of in today’s world?

Consistent practice. Opposite of the practice of meditation, in which you practice the emptying of your mind. To practice focus, think of an object. An apple. A bright red apple. Hold the thought in your mind of only an apple. Hold it for as long as you can. If you can hold it for five seconds, you’re doing pretty good. Practice whenever you get a chance. Red lights. In the bathroom. On the elevator. Decide to choose a thought, and hold only that thought for as long as you can.

When you can hold a simple thought, of a simple picture, move on to more complicated pictures. Ones containing a small amount of motion. A hummingbird floating next to a feeder. A clown juggling three bowling balls. A seal with a phone book balanced on its nose.

When you get good at that, you can move on to the next step. You’ll need to prepare yourself with five fantastic memories. If you ever notice your thoughts drifting to unhappy imaginations about the future, you can pull up your five happy memories, and force out the bad guys.

Start by remembering a happy memory from childhood. Really get into it. Close your eyes and easily allow yourself to float back into that memory. Really relive it. Relive it several times. Every time you relive this, put the memory into your left thumb. That’s right, put that wonderful memory into your left thumb. Use what you learned about pegging in the articles on memory and associate that memory with your left thumb.

Do the same with your forefinger, middle finger, ring finger and pinky. Take your time. They don’t have to be childhood memories. Any good memory will do. Make sure it’s a strong, powerful memory. Sex, money, sports, anything that causes you to automatically remember good feelings will work.

You might need to practice a few times before it really sets. But after you take the time to really attach those good memories to your left hand, you will have a powerful source to instantly and powerfully re direct your brain should you ever find yourself thinking less than supportive thoughts. Just open your left hand, and take a moment with your thumb and your fingers recalling all those good memories you’ve programmed in. Once you cycle through all five, make a fist and hold it up to sybolically chase the bad thoughts that have crept into your brain.

After you do this consciously a few times you won’t even have to recall the memories. By training your brain in this manner, simply by clenching your left hand into a fist will immediately flood your brain with good thoughts.

In future articles, I will teach you how install resources, goals, and other skills so you can automatically direct your brain, giving you the power to accomplish great things in your life.

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Christmas Camellia

This morning I saw this old guy that I usually pass by on my morning walk. “Ohayo Gozaimasu!” I said, as I usually do. (‘Ohayo gozaimasu’ is Japanese for ‘good morning.’) It seemed that he ignored me. I slowed down a bit, because he always responds in kind, and very cheerfully. He didn’t even seem to make any attempt at eye contact. I turned to look and see what he was looking at, and all I could see was a bunch of camellias over across the road.

Camellias are an interesting flower. They are nice to look at, and bloom when all the other flowers around them have decided to take the winter off. Maybe they think they got the short end of the stick, but I’m not so sure. Being a contrarian can have it’s advantages. Especially if you are a contrarian just because of chance.

For example, when you make a choice, some people base their decisions on internal factors, and others make their decisions on external factors. If you decide largely by internal factors, you will have your own reasons for doing that, without any regard to what other people will think. Like when you decide to get up a 5 AM and exercise every morning. You don’t do it because it’s popular, you do it because you’ve decided to do it for your own reasons. Other people make decisions based on external factors, or other people. Those people make decisions based on how other people think, or how they imagine other people will think. It’s almost like allowing a giant group of imaginary people make your own decision for you.

Like sometimes I’ll see a group of kids walking to school. They are supposed to walk in a straight line, with some designated kid the leader. Sometimes, though, I see a kid hanging out in the back, like you do sometimes when you decide to march to your own drummer, and kick a rock while you walk.

And sometimes when you decide to be a contrarian just for being a contrarians sake, you get extra benefits. That’s one of the reasons why the camellia leaf is used to make popular tea. One of the most popular ones is called Christmas Camellia.

And it turns out that old guy didn’t say hi because his wife had bought him a pair of earmuffs that affected his hearing a bit. Hear I was thinking he was marching to a different drummer, but that different drummer turned out to be his wife.

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What’s Important About That?

I met an old friend of mine for dinner the other night. He seemed really upset about something. I kept pressing for details, but he didn’t want to upset my seemingly good mood. I have been on an interesting diet lately, and many people have been telling me that I look like I’ve lost weight, so I’ve been able to act a little happier than normal. But finally, my friend caved and told me his problem.

Turns out he and his wife had been planning on taking a vacation as soon as they could get their respective vacation times at their jobs to coincide. Their bigger plan is to take on last vacation together, kind of like a second honeymoon (even though they’ve only been married 2 years) before starting to build a family.  Seems that they take a pragmatic approach. Get married. Save money. Have kids.

“So what’s the problem?” I asked. “You guys sound like you’re really together! You guys are able to plan your life together, and make your plans that that you an easily achieve them. You are a lot better than most people. Most people shoot first, then maybe think about aiming in couple weeks. What gives?”

After my friend explained his problem to me, I understood. It seems that they both had their respective hearts set on a specific vacation place. And they both assumed that the other person had agreed to go to their place. And when they sat down to plan their fun, they realized that they weren’t on the same page. And since they both kind of viewed this as a ‘last vacation together’ kind of thing, neither of them wanted to budge.

Which is interesting in and of itself. Most people can make plans, and then follow through. But we can run into problems when you don’t communicate well with others who will be involved in those plans. It’s like when other people don’t object, we assume that they will go along with us. I reminded my friend about this, as raising a kid requires that you be flexible and communicate well. I asked my friend that since they were both guilty of the same thing, if they could compromise.

“What do you mean, compromise?” My friend asked. “I want to go here, and she wants to go there. They are totally different. One person has to lose for the other to win.” Aha. I thought I saw the problem.

I was reminded of a business negotiation seminar I took. We would role play being different business situations, and practice these negotiation skills. For example, a Union Boss would want more health benefits, more vacation time, and higher pay. The Business Manager would want to save money wherever possible. The trick in being a negotiator, was to keep asking “What’s important about that?” Until you got a point where the Union Boss and the Business Manager could find a solution that would satisfy both of their respective deeper needs.  

For example, the Union Boss’s underlying concern was that the workers would realize that the company was serious about taking care of them, as the increases in health benefits and wages were really only symbolic. And the Business Manager was concerned with the long term growth of the company. As a ‘pretend’ negotiator, I explained to the Union Boss that the more stable the Business manager thought the future of the company was, the more willing he’d be to extend their long term contracts. And I explained to the Business Manager that by giving just a little bit of a raise, they would be much more willing to lock in that rate if it were for an extended contract period.

It was an interesting seminar that taught a lot about negotiating, and the importance of communication. Especially when you are able to find out what’s important to the people you care about, so when you make plans for the future, you can be sure to involve everyone.

I explained this to my friend, and we actually role played a few scenarios between him and his wife.  After a few practice rounds, he was convinced that they would be able to find a new place which would satisfy both their vacations needs for their second honeymoon. 

They invited me over to dinner a few days later. I tepidly asked them about their vacation, hoping I wasn’t precluding myself from any future dinners by starting world war three.

They both immediately broke into huge grins. Aha! I thought to myself. Maybe they would at least give me partial credit for solving their marital problems. Where would they go? Greece? Italy? Mexico? Maybe they’d let me house sit. They have a really nice, really HUGE flat screen HD TV.

“We canceled our vacation!”

Huh?

“We decided to put the money into an extra room. We’re building a nursery!”

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The Metaphorical Problem Solving Dream

You go to work. Ugh. Your boss says he’s got good news, and bad news. You go into his office, and sit down. Nervous. “What’s the good news?” You ask, pretty sure you’d prefer no news.

I’m putting you in charge of marketing.”
“That’s great,” you say, but obviously you don’t share his enthusiasm.
“What’s the bad news?” You timidly ask.
“The marketing department is being moved to North Dakota.” (If you happen to live in and love North Dakota, pretend he said Ohio.)
“Oh, great.” What else can you say? You’ve made it quite evident for quite some time that you want the marketing job.

That night, you go out to dinner with your spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend. Coincidentally they received a promotion as well.

To Europe.

“Come with me!” They exhort.

You have a problem. And everybody you ask tells you something different.

Break up.
Give an ultimatum.
Turn down the promotion.
Tell them to turn down the promotion.
Quit your job and become a ventriloquist.

What on Earth do you do?

Enter Dream Number Three. The Metaphorical Problem Solving Dream.

If you’ve read my other articles on dreams, you know how to remember them, how to use them to release fears and anxieties, and how to use them to look out for danger.

In this article, I’ll tell you how you can ask your brain, (or your higher self, or infinite intelligence,) for advice, and how to listen for and interpret the answer.

The most fantastic part about this, is that most of the time, you won’t even need to worry about dream image interpretation. Because your dream will do it all for you, and give you the answer in the morning. If you do happen to encounter a metaphorical problem solving dream, you can still trust you instinct for the answer, or you can choose to interpret the dream.

Here’s what you do. Just before you go to sleep, ask yourself an open ended question that presumes a positive answer.
For example, “Why am I so stupid?” is an open ended question, but it presumes a negative answer. You want to stay away from those.

Some better questions could be:

What solution would be best for everybody?
How many ways can I solve this problem for the greater good?
How can I solve this problem and still maintain my job and my relationship?

The secret here, is to keep repeating these silently to yourself questions as you drift off at night. Then your brain will work on them as you sleep, and usually you’ll have an answer in the morning. It’s really amazing the way this works. You’ll wake up, and then an idea will just pop into your head that you hadn’t thought of before. It will seem totally obvious, and you won’t believe you didn’t think of it before.

Now if you do happen to have a really crazy dream, it’s because your brain is taking all the images and memories you have stored, and using them to put together a solution for you. It does this anyways, it’s just that you don’t normally remember them when you wake up. So if you do recall a vivid and strange dream, you can play around with figuring out what it means. In the meantime, watch out for that magical solution to pop into your head out of nowhere.

It’s really fascinating how wonderfully the mind works if you just give it simple instructions, then back up and let it help you out. Not only can you solve many problems, but you can create all kinds of good feelings as well.

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Return to Source

Once upon time there was a large body of water. Freshwater. Up high in the mountains, surrounded by pristine trees and unspoiled landscapes of many colors. Every summer the water would evaporate itself and mix with his friend the sky, and they would hang out together for a while. When it was time, the evaporated water would then turn into frozen water and would snow down on the mountaintops. He was always worried, however. Sometimes he didn’t think the animals below would have enough time to fatten their bellies enough to make it through the winter. The other animals usually moved to nicer neighborhoods when the time came. It always worked out, though.

Frozenwater would sit on the mountaintop, relaxing, waiting for his other friend the sun to come and thaw him out. When it came time to thaw out, he would run down the mountains, and separate himself out into many streams, and rivers. Eventually he would go back and rejoin himself in the lakes that spotted the various high mountain plains. Every year they had a long discussion, actually a discussion with himself, about which part would go up into the sky, and become air, and then become snow, and which part would stay behind and freeze itself under it’s own skin.

Of course, the part of himself that had the most fun was the small part that every year got to flow all the way down to the ocean. It was kind of like a cultural exchange of sorts, set up long ago by who knows what or who. The freshwater would allow a small part of himself to flow all the way out to the ocean, where he would see different fish, and animals and creatures that he would never see up on in the lake or the sky or the mountaintop.

And every summer, the large ocean would send a small part of himself, up into the air, and would make it up to the mountain, and then back down into the lake. Where he could play with new friends that he hadn’t seen in a while that belonged to his other self, which of course was all part of the same self.

This continued, season after season, year after year, millenia after millenia. Until one day, the part of freshwater that was chosen (usually with a couple rounds of rock scissor paper) to go down to meet with it’s other self, the saltwater self, couldn’t. Almost couldn’t. There was some kind of a giant wall that was keeping the freshwater self from meeting his saltwater self. So he had to go back, but when he turned around to go back, he was already back. There was a giant lake, a new lake, where there wasn’t one before. The freshwater looked around. The trees looked different. The sky looked different. He stuck his finger up into the air and checked the temperature, and decided that he wouldn’t be able to freeze that year. Oh well, he decided to make the best of it.

A few hundred years passed. No freezing. No mountaintops, no splitting into stream and river and many small lakes. It was no big deal to freshwater, because he was still together with himself. Freshwater laughed. It wasn’t like he would ever be apart from himself, despite wherever this weird wall came from.

It’s like when you have one of those days, and you can just see yourself in all other people. For some strange reason, you just feel connected. Like when you see somebody, you kind of have a feeling, that you know this person. Even though you’ve never met, you just feel something. And despite how much you feel wonderful when you notice this feeling, it never is able to stay long.

Then one spring, when the snow part of itself was melting, and flowing into the new lake part of itself, (although by this time the new lake was rather old,)
the strange wall had dissappeared. So the freshwater just kept right on flowing. Down. Down. And a lot of the other freshwater selves wanted to join itself on the way down, since there was so much of it.

And then a funny thing happened. Because the freshwater had been apart from itself for such a long time, he kind of forgot that he was a small sliver of the larger saltwater part of himself. So when the freshwater self greeted his saltwater self, for a moment, it seemed as if he were a small child meeting with an old grandparent. Of course the feeling lasted only a flash, as whenever freshwater reunites with the saltwater, you can remember who you are. All is well. Because water never really is separate from itself, as any scientist will tell you. Always flowing, never static. And despite having the allusion of being separated, you are always together.

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Three Tricks to Supercharge Your Memory

Everything was perfect. Down to the second. Log off the internet. Jump in the shower. Brush my teeth. Get dressed, get ready to leave, so I show up at work right on time, and…oh crud…where’d I put my keys? Pocket? No. Backpack? No. Freezer? No. Aha! Jacket pocket! No. Wait, over on top of the stereo? Next to my little statue of Buddha? What in the world? Hey Buddha, why’d you steal my keys? The Buddha doesn’t answer. Maybe because they didn’t have keys back in Buddha’s day. But guess what, that reminds me. Here are three tricks to remember the three things you forget the most. Ready?

Car Keys

Where’d they go? Well, this trick, as with the other two, require that you decide before you put your keys down that you want to remember where you put them. This trick won’t work if you throw them down while talking to your friend on your cell phone while checking through the mail for that big check that is supposed to come. The trick? Simple. Imagine the keys are made of some highly toxic alien blood metal, or some kind of advanced explosive, and whatever you set them down on gets completely and absolutely destroyed. I know a person that imagines her keys to be a little tasmanian devil, and spins around and eats through whatever surface she puts them on. Make sure the destruction is really fantastic. So when you think of your keys, you can easily remember what you destroyed with them. (Only in your mind, of course.)

Remote Control

Use the same method, but involve the buttons and some kind of a death ray coming out the front of the remote. Choose something you’d like to destroy before you set it down. Something that doesn’t move, so the cat won’t work. Like a big plant, or your stereo, or your homework. Anything. So when you come looking for the remote, you’ll automatically remember what it is you wanted to destroy with your Death Star remote control.

Car

This one requires a little imagination, but it’s the most fun. Say you park in section A4. Usually when you leave, you look up at A4 and think, ok, no problem. But when you come back, problem. A-what? In this case, A4, think of a noun that starts with the letter A.  Acrobat. Astronaut. Aerobics teacher (choose your favorite.) Then think of something related to the number four. Four leaf clover. Four legged elephant. Four Horseman of the Apocalypse. Four members of the Beatles. Choose one for each, and make a crazy story connecting the two. Like your Aerobics teacher riding an elephant who is crushing your car. Or an astronaut with his space suit filled with killer carniverous alien four leaf clovers. It sounds complicated, but it only takes a couple of seconds, and your friends will be amazed. Just be careful not to mumble your secret memory picture too loudly while you’re walking back to your car. Your friends might suddenly want to call a cab.

These are just three simple techniques that can easily help you increase your skills when you use the amazing power of your mind. To find out many more ways to use your brain in new and fascinating directions, have a look through my other articles, or check back for more, as I update this site daily. And be sure to tell your friends, too.

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Deliver a Powerfully Persuasive Speech

You stand up slowly, and turn to face the room. You face the spellbound crowd, waiting to hear your wisdom. You pause to collect your thoughts, imagining exactly how you want the crowd to respond to your call to action, knowing full well they will once they hear your irresistible message. You take a deep breath, not to calm your nerves, but to give your voice power and strength, enough to capture the attention and imagination of those sitting in the back row.

You can do this naturally and easily, because you have the learned the skill of persuasive oratory. You have learned to project your message so those that hear cannot help but to do what you say. In case you’ve forgotten this skill, here are a few pointers to help you remember:

Step One

Start with a powerful attention getter. Something that will yank thier minds away from their normal everyday thoughts and towards your incredibly moving message. Once I gave a speech to my local toastmasters group on fear, how to embrace fear and use fear to your advantage. My attention getter? I screamed at the top of my lungs as if I was terrified. Did it work? Absolutely!

Step Two

Pace your audience. Say things that they can’t help but agree with.

“Today’s economy is tough.”
(No matter how bad or good the economy is, people will agree with that statement.)

“You all want to get ahead in life.”
(Who doesn’t?)

“You’ve come here to improve yourself.”
 (Who hasn’t?)

Spend three or four mintues getting your audience comfortable with agreeing with what you are saying.

Step Three

Demonstrate that you know about what they need. Identify their pain. Show them that you understand what it is they want.

“You are having problems making ends meet.”
“You need to improve your skills so you can make more money.”
“You want to be able to increase your sales.”

You will need to tailor the above statements to meet the specific needs of the people you are speaking to. If you tell a book club they need to increase their life insurance, they might disagree with you. But if you tell a group of soon to be graduating college students they need to sharpen their resume building and interview skills, they’re more likely to agree with you. 

Step Four

Introduce the pain of non-action. Now, it might sound mean to purposely cause somebody pain, but if your purpose is to help them in the long run, and if you believe by doing what you say, it will benefit them, it’s ok.

“If you don’t get your resume as good as your competition, you won’t get the job you want.”
“If you don’t practice and sharpen your interview skills, the person sitting next to you will get hired instead of you.”

Step Five

A call to action. Review their needs, the pain of non action, and then give them a specific step to move in the direction that you want them to go. (Please note, if you tell them to go in a direction that will only benefit you and not them, then you should become friends with this guy.)  If you are truly giving advice that will help others, make sure you will benefit as well. Win win situations are the best.

The more you realize that simply because you have life experience that can benefit others, the more you will be able to not only help out people, but increase your skills and help yourself out as well.

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Eruption

Once upon a time there were two rabbits.  Rupert and Rectangle. They were hanging out, doing rabbit stuff. Looking for carrots, finding turtles to race, and resting from making more rabbits, as it was their day off. Rupert, the younger rabbit, decided he wanted to make a model volcano. Kind of like Peter Brady, only without the electricity. Most rabbit experts will tell you that rabbits generally don’t use electricity.

So this young rabbit was building this volcano, but he couldn’t quite get it to work right. He didn’t have the lava mix quite down. I think he was using a combination of egg whites and mulch, or perhaps some kind of gelatin derivative.  He kept getting really frustrated, and he was about to give up. The wise older rabbit, Rectangle, said “Don’t give up yet, Rupert!” But Rupert just threw down his volcano making tools in dismay.

“Nothing is going right. I want to do this, and instead it does that. I want to make it lean right, and it wants to lean left.”

“Relax, Rupert relax. Go with the flow. Don’t fight against the natural order of things. It will come in time. It always does. Just remember to do things one step at a time. If it doesn’t go the way you want it, change what you are doing. Step back, take a bigger look, and figure out what to try next. It’s only practice, after all.”

Poor ruper was following along, but he didn’t quite understand the last part. “Practice? Practice for what?”

“Why tomorrow, of course. Everything you do today, is just practice for tomorrow. Because if you allow yourself to release your expectations, and let things be just the way they are, you’ll be fine. As long as you learn from what happens, you can do it better next time. Especially because you always have tomorrow to look forward to, right?”

“I guess so,” Rupert replied, “But how will I ever finish, if I only practice?”

“Take a look around you young sir, take a look at everything. Does everything look finished to you? Are all your friends not still growing? Are all the trees not still getting bigger? Does father not upgrade and improve your rabbit hole every winter? Do you not need to learn new things in school every year? Does your Uncle, the carrot farmer, not have to learn new carrot planting methods every year? Practice. It’s all just practice.”

 “Practice for tomorrow. I got it,” Rupert said, getting back to work on his volcano.

“And one of the best parts about realizing that everything is practice for tomorrow, is that no matter how bad you mess up or how well you do, you can always look forward to being able to get better.”

And Rupert proceeded to make the best volcano ever.

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The Power of The Throat Chakra

Imagine you walk into a room. You walk up to a group of people that you haven’t met yet. They look up when they see you. Curious. Curious because you carry yourself with complete confidence and poise. Curious because you have a look on your face that tells them that what you are about to say is very important. You open your mouth to speak, and all their thoughts are forgotten as they turn to wait to hear your opinion, your thoughts, your guidance.

Now some people, when they read that, might think “oh, no, I could never do that,” or something along those lines. But that is only because they haven’t been able to discover the power that everyone possesses. They aren’t able to discover the wisdom that everyone can express to share with others.

The reason is not a matter of knowledge, or experience, or expertise. The main concern here is one of communication. If you can find a way to embrace and express your truth, then without question people will listen. And one powerful way to begin to do that is by opening the Fifth, or Throat Chakra.

The Throat Chakra is all about communication, expression, persuasion. The more open your Throat Chakra will be, the more naturally and easily you will persuade others to your point of view. And you know as well as anybody else that people throughout history have been able to use this power both for good and for evil. I’m not going to give examples of either, because I’m sure you can think of plenty.

Before you begin your meditation on the Throat Chakra, ask yourself the following questions. Remember, as I’ve said in my other articles about the Chakras, you don’t have to get clear answers, just ask the questions, and be open for any responses that come.

What is truth?
What is my truth?
What are my desires?
How do my desires coincide with those of others?
How do all of us want the same thing?
How do I want people to think, feel, respond when I speak my truth?

Take a deep breath, slow. In. Out. As you exhale, imagine a small blue ball of light appear at your throat. Allow it to grow in size, slowly, with each exhale. Imagine the infinite wisdom of the universe breath through you into slowly growing ball of blue light. Allow it to grow slowly, until it is completely surrounding you. Sit inside for seven deep slow, breaths. After seven breaths, slowly allow it to shrink back down into our throat. Still filled with the wisdom of the universe, channeled through you, resting in your throat center, waiting to power your expressions.

How does it feel, now, as you sit there, to have such power resting in your throat, awaiting for you to express your truth? How much can you help others, now, that you know you have such power? What can you give? What can you share?

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