Category Archives: Reality

Do You Worship The Sun And The Moon?

The Secret of Personality

Once I was reading a book about different personality types. It was pretty interesting. Of course, there are several personality quizzes online that you can take the claim to give you an adequate read on your personality.

I don’t know how accurate they are, or how accurate they claim to be. There are a lot of different schools of thought on personality, where it originates from and what are some of the factors that influence them.

One major factor that many people believe in is astrology. Depending on what year or month you were born in (depending in you believe in Asian or Western astrology) it has an impact on your personality, your characteristics, and even the kind of life you will have. One thing that I think is particularly interesting is that both Asian and western astrology is based on 12. In the west, there are twelve signs that roughly correspond to twelve months. In the east the twelve signs are for twelve different years.

One reason that some believe that the number twelve is important in astrology, and other belief systems that were developed before any kind of scientific method of objective observation of the universe is the cycle of the moon.

In one year, the moon cycles roughly twelve times. That is, a full moon appears about every twenty-eight days or so, or about once a month. Of course, there is the rare occasion, because the cycle of the moon is a little quicker than the length of the month that the moon catches up. And there are two full moons in one month. (Incidentally, this is where the expression “once in a blue moon” comes from. A blue moon is the second full moon in any given month.)

So here we have two belief systems, both centered on the number twelve, which in turn is based on the number of full moons that primitive men and women saw in a year’s time.
Its kind of hard to imagine nowadays, but life back then must have been incredibly confusing, and complicated. And much, much more precarious.
Today, if we need food, we just go and buy some. If we are sick, we go and see a doctor. If we have an accident, we call and ambulance, and somebody comes and picks us up takes us to the hospital.

But life back then was nowhere near as safe and comfortable as life today. The elements could easily kill you. If you messed up and didn’t plant our crops correctly, or at the wrong time, you and your whole family would die. If you were out hunting, and you slipped and broke ankle, you’d be likely left for dead, and the animals would soon come and eat you.

So it’s only natural that people developed this huge feeling of reverence for their natural environment. And not knowing anything about space travel or celestial mechanics, the sun and the moon were seen as all-powerful gods to be feared and respected.

So it made sense, back then at least, to base your life around the cycle of the sun and the moon. But does it make sense today?

I was talking to a friend of mine last week that went and saw a psychic. Not just one of those dudes who sits around on a street corner and reads your palms, a famous, several times televised, multi bestselling book writing psychic. This guy would do all kinds of mind reading, and communing with the spirits.

I asked if he was told any insights about his own life, and he said he was too shy to raise his hand and get a reading. He did say the guy was pretty amazing, and that he accurately read a bunch of people’s lives, telling them what they had experienced and what they should do in the future. He said a few things about people that had “crossed over” as he said, but nothing really specific.
Of course, I have another friend who says that is nothing but what she calls “cold reading.” Apparently this is the art of being artfully vague, and saying things that most anybody could agree with. Things like “you have had some tough times in your past, and often times you wonder if those times are completely behind you or not.” That could be true for pretty much anybody.

I guess people are always looking for some kind of guidance, or validation that everything is going to be ok. Or that if things to wrong, there is some bigger plan. Otherwise people might be inclined to just give up if they thought that they didn’t really have much of a choice, and everything was left up to fate. Or worse, we have zero choice in the matter and we are all part of some continuous expansion of universal randomness.

I’m not sure exactly where I fall along the line of mystical-astrological-psychic phenomenon, but some of that stuff sure is interesting, to say the least.

Maybe I need to be more open-minded.

Are Kids REALLY Getting Worse?

The other day I was talking to a neighbor of mine. She was saying how lately some of the kids in the neighborhood have been acting less polite than usual. And I think when she said lately, she meant the last several years. And because of her age, I was almost ready to discount her statement as just another disgruntled old person’s expected “kids today,” rant.

There is a famous quote that goes something like this: “kids today don’t listen anymore, and they don’t respect their elders, blah blah blah,” which sounds like a common enough complaint. When you realize that was spoken by some Greek guy over two thousand years ago, it becomes apparent that old people grumbling about kids is common to every generation.

But one thing that is different, at least in this particular situation is there are some statistics to back this up. According to several sources, there are less and less people getting and staying married. And there are less and less people attending religious services on a regular basis. Before you click off this page thinking that I’m some right wing family values religious nutcase, please understand I haven’t stepped foot in a church since my fathers funeral, and I think it’s absolutely fantastic that social pressures that keep people in otherwise unhappy marriages are crumbling, giving people freedom that they wouldn’t have enjoyed in other generations.

That being said, I think this is an interesting phenomenon from a scientific, societal standpoint. There are less and less marriages, and many more divorces, which many argue lead naturally to a less stable upbringing for kids. Of course there is the argument that kids are better of with separated or divorced parents than with parents together but at each others throat all the time.

Also, less and less families are attending any kind of church services as a whole. When you combine these two together, you have less positive role models for kids to look up to, which leaves them only with each other to learn how to behave and act in modern society.

Please keep in mind that I am not arguing for people to stay married if they hate each other, or get married if they aren’t ready. Nor am I advocating any church participation of any sort. I jus think it’s interesting to watch the dynamic unfold, and how it will affect society in years to come.

I am a firm believer in personal responsibility, and if you are of the persuasion that it is up to society to teach you morals and proper behavior, and then you are at the mercy of the ebbs and flow of societal trends, be they good or bad.

If, however, you are inclined to choose your own moral path, based upon your own choices and decisions for where you want your own life to lead, then there has never been a better time that right now.

Crumbling influences of society can be good, and it can be bad. Like any other system, those that depend upon it stand to lose when the system has problems. Those that understand the system for what it is, and use it to their advantage usually come out ahead, regardless of their social economic background and upbringing.

Crumbling social pressures to get and stay married may make finding and keeping a partner more difficult, but much more rewarding once they are found.

Similarly, releasing oneself from the restrictions of the two thousand year old religious moral authority may seem frightening at first, but when you realize you can make your own rules, (so long as you are prepared to live with the consequences,) you can gain so much more power.

What many come to realize is that when they choose their own path in life, they find that their own personal code of morals and ethics closely mimic the beneficial ones from religion. Don’t kill, steal, or covet, or lie. And as a bonus, some of the stuff is supposedly bad, isn’t so bad after all.

Like sex and money are perfectly fine so long as you make sure everybody is happy, and nobody gets hurt. Of course, if you’re going to make more people, then you need to be sure they grow up with the best resources, mental and otherwise, to achieve their dreams in life as well. Maybe that’s what my neighbor was getting at.

The Power of Perspective

I lot of people have been talking recently about that new idea that’s been going around. I don’t know if you’ve heard about it or not, but it’s one of those things where you can’t be sure if it is just a passing fad, or if this will turn into something really worthwhile. I friend of mine found a copy of this a bookstore. Not the newer one, but the original book that was circulating around before that international guru got a hold of this and brought it back into the public consciousness again. I’m not sure if he is being true to the original authors work, but it seems to be starting off on the right track. You never can tell, though. I usually like to hold off judgment on things like this until they have reached a critical mass. I don’t know if that is good or if I’m just lazy, but it seems to have worked for me in the past.

It’s interesting the way things are looked at differently when considered from different angles. Especially when you throw history into the mix. Some ideas seem totally fantastic and obviously wonderful. Nobody can find any fault with them, as they sweep the nation with a wildfire rapidity usually reserved for deadly diseases. Then ten years later, you look back in time and think, “Dude, what were we thinking?” It’s interesting how a power of perspective can greatly give you expanded views of what you think is so obvious.

I took a seminar once on this very subject. We were instructed to sit in a chair, and imagine that we were a fly flying around our bodies. With our eyes closed, we imagined the fly looking at our hair, our ears, our legs and feet. Then we imagined looking at ourselves from the ceiling, the floor, and even through the window from the outside. Then we later tried during a normal conversation. We would sit across from somebody, and while we were talking and maintaining eye contact with the other person, we would imagine seeing and hearing ourselves from the other persons perspective. This is a lot more difficult than it seems. Quite often we would stop in mid sentence as we tried to focus on all these different things at once. One cool thing that happened is that after a few practice, runs, when we were finally able to maintain this new angle of perspective and hold a normal conversation, we found that our minds became very calm and quit. You don’t really know what all those voices are chattering on about in your head until they shut up for once. I really recommend trying this out next time you are having a not so important conversation. Hold off on doing this when talking to your boss, otherwise he or she might think you are a bit off. This takes some practice, but once you get the hang of it, it gives you an amazing clarity of concentration and focus.

The next step in the seminar was to look at our lives from different perspectives in time. From a newborn babies perspective, trying to imagine what it would be like before learning to walk and learn the alphabet. Looking at our present abilities would be astounding to an infant. Some things that we take for granted are really wonderful gifts that we overlook. Another exercise we did was to look at our lives from the perspective of our great great grandchildren. Some of the big problems that we think are so important looked absolutely tiny in comparison. Many people found that this simple exercise helped them to discover what is really important in your life. When you can release the small problems that are taking up valuable space in your brain, and sort out the three or four things that are really important, it can really give you a fresh enthusiasm for getting what you want out of life.

I would recommend doing this as often as possible, from as many different perspectives as you can imagine. The fly, the infant, the great grandchild, even of God, if you can allow yourself to do that without violating any of your beliefs.

People that do this on a regular basis find that your world will naturally expand and you will find yourself discovering new resources that you never thought were possible before. And all of this is possible with only a few minutes of imagination.

The Preacher and The Crystal Shop

I was out with a friend yesterday, downtown. We were just wandering around. I had just bought a bunch of white board markers. I use a white board marker when I make my YouTube videos, as I don’t have a printer. I position the camera just in front of the white board, so I can check the notes while still looking at the camera. I try to use different colors for different parts of my monologue. We had just left the stationary store. It was next door to a new age, metaphysical type shop that sold different crystals, and incense and other things that can help you to get in touch with the metaphysical world, if that is what you are into.

We walked in, and there were several tables set up with different crystals on them. I went over and picked one up, and suddenly noticed a strange sensation. I turned around, and the shopkeeper was looking right at me. The other people in the shop were grinning, as if they knew what was coming. I suspected she pegged me as first time customer and decided to give me some hocus pocus sales pitch to try to get me to buy some crystals or incense or tarot cards or something.

The power of the spirit has found you! The crystals are a manifestation of the love of the universe! You think you have chosen them, but they have chosen you. You must listen to your intuitions and let them guide you! You must not forsake the wisdom of their advice! That which you see around you is but a representation of the glory of infinite intelligence that precedes all that is, was, and will be! Beware those who disregard these truths!

The people in the shop were grinning, as they had apparently heard her say this to others. I was impressed at her acting abilities, and chose a couple crystals. One rose quartz and one purple one (I forgot the name already.) My friend and me went on our way.

Later that day, we were in a different part of town. There is a government building, and sometimes on the steps people will come and preach. Usually from some type of Christian angle. They kind of remind me of my days in university, where some weird guy would stand on the steps in front of the cafeteria and go on and on about the dangers of fornication.

The guy that was there, I had never seen before. So we stopped to hear his monologue. As soon as we stopped, he looked directly at me, which was kind of spooky. Everybody around was smiling, I guess because they were glad it was me and not them he was aiming his sermon at.

The power of the Lord has found you! The Bread of Life is a manifestation of the Love of the universe! You think you have chosen it, but it has chosen you! You must listen to your soul and let it guide you! You must not forsake the wisdom of your soul’s advice! That which you see around you is but a representation of the glory of God that precedes all that is, was, and will be! Beware those who disregard these truths!

I felt a bit confused, as I slipped into an uncomfortable feeling of Déjà vu. Has that ever happened to you? So anyway, he had some basket that he was apparently asking for donations. Everybody was looking at me, as his sermon was directed at me. I didn’t have any change, so I put in the two crystals I had bought at the shop before. Everybody seemed to take that as hint, and began filling up his basket with red and purple crystals. Which was strange, because I think he might have been hoping for some money. I don’t know what he is going to do with all those crystals.

Give Yourself the Gift of Power

If you study great leaders, actors, even kings, you’ll find one common thread about how they move through the world.  You will find one quality that they possess which makes others absolutely captivated by them and moved to support for their cause, whatever it may be. Luckily, we live in a time and a society where those that have this power generally use it for the benefit of man. There have been those leaders in the past who have used this power for evil, and have nearly destroyed whole societies in process. I don’t want to bring down my blog with the mere mention of these evil men, but I’m sure you can imagine who I’m talking about.

What is this quality that they possess? Perhaps more importantly, how can you not only develop this quality, but realize that you already have it? How can you tap this power to make your life a bold statement of the eternal gift that lives in all of us? What steps can you take to easily realize and appreciate this latent power?

First, let’s explore exactly what it is. The one thing that these leaders and kings have is a solid belief that they are the ultimate creators of their life. They are responsible for everything that they achieve, or don’t achieve. Perhaps due to some quirk of their upbringing, perhaps due to a strong conscious choice followed through by strong action, these men and women have decided at some point that their lives were completely up to them. They didn’t wait for permission. They didn’t wait for their parents or teachers to tell them it was ok. They didn’t hear a booming voice through parted clouds that gave them a detailed plan to follow to ensure their success.

No, these powerful men and women learned that everything they wanted, they would have to create. They were able to release the need for approval, guaranteed safety, or the generous opinions of others. They made a choice, and followed through. Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead.

How about you? What is holding you back? What are you afraid to release? Are you too concerned with the opinions of others? This can be a difficult thing to let go of.  A kind word from an authoritative figure an make you feel wonderful. A not so kind word can have the opposite effect. The secret to overcoming this is to view yourself as the ultimate authority on your life. You must give yourself the appreciation that you hope to receive from others. It can help to realize that no other person can fully know you as well as you know yourself. Any appreciation or kind opinions they express about your are really filtered through their own experiences and biases, so both good and bad can only have a limited amount of relevance.

When you learn to approve of yourself, your desires, your intentions, above all others, you will realize your power. You will be able to see the world as your playground, where you can enjoy life and create what you want at the same time. You will then learn the wonderful truth about reality that the quickest and easiest way to get what you want is to truly serve others. And not serve others in hopes of a quick, shallow, reciprocation. To truly serve others is to do so in secret, because it allows them to fully appreciate your gift, and it is a powerful message to yourself that you have all you need, and don’t need to rely on the opinions of others any more.

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Beware the Seduction of Perfection

I remember once when I went to the beach with a friend of mine. It was the first time we’d been to that particular beach. We were both avid body surfers, and were always looking for new beaches that had waves that were shaped well enough for a nice ride. Everybody knows how fun a nice ride is, right? So we came up to this beach, and it wasn’t very crowded, and the waves had a very slow rolling break that looked like it would support our average skills in body surfing. We couldn’t really do a lot of tricks like barrel rolls or anything like that, but it was fun, and we enjoyed it.

We approached the beach with high expectations, because as the nice shaped waves kept rolling in, we suspected they were the norm, rather than the exception. We’d been to many beaches before where the waves were generally pretty lousy, and good sets came in only once in a great while. But this beach, however, was seemingly unlike that. This beach seemed to offer a fairly consistent supply of ridable waves. We both walked into the water, it was late spring so we weren’t wearing any wet suits, as this story takes place in San Diego. After putting on our flippers, we backed out until we were deep enough where we could swim without dragging on the bottom. It’s hard to walk out wearing flippers, you see.

We suddenly realized why this beach was so sparsely populated. There was a huge amount of kelp just below the surface that you couldn’t see. The more we tried to fight our way through it, hoping it would ease up eventually, the more we realized that it just got worse and worse. Pretty soon it became clear that not only was it a nuisance, but it was dangerous as well. For anyone that has body surfed before will know what I’m talking about. When you wipe out, you are plunged under the surface of the water, in what my friend refers to as the “spin cycle,” like in a washing machine. Because of the rotating motion of the wave, when you are plunged into the water, your body continues with the spinning motion. Sometimes it can take a while to figure out which way is up. What makes it even more difficult is when you are struggling for breath. Add in the possibility of being tangled up in kelp, and drowning suddenly becomes a likely outcome of a wipe out.

No thank you.

We exited the water as quickly as possible, realizing the danger of this beach. The waves no longer looked like inviting sources of fun and pleasure, venus fly traps of death beckoning us, only to swallow us and kill us.

It’s amazing how the surface of something changes when you realize that just underneath are things that will grab you and cling to you and never let you go. It is lucky we found the kept when we did, and not on our first wipe out. That would have been quite dangerous.

We both learned that day to be very careful. Sometimes it’s important to tread carefully below the surface. What might appear to be enticing, may actually harbor deeper things that you can’t see that can grab you and pull you under. Never to let you see the light of day or take another breath of life sustaining fresh air.

I’m glad we decided to proceed cautiously. While it’s imporant to actively search for things in life that you can enjoy this, now, it is also important to check below the surface a little bit sometimes before you dive in.

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Unresolving Ducks of Confusion

This morning I was talking to a friend of mine in the UK, over the phone. I haven’t spoken to him in a while, but he is one of those friends that you just can pick up where you left off, you don’t need to keep up a lot of maintenance. Like if you have a pair of skis, you can just throw them in the garage when the winter thaws out and wait until next year.

Sometimes I wonder if it’s better to rent skis. I don’t think I use them enough to warrant buying a new pair every year, but some people get away with it. It’s like when you decide to try something new, and you put all kinds of effort and energy into it, and make big plans, then later decide that it wasn’t something that was as good as you thought it might have been back when you first started thinking about it.

But my friend was telling me about these new neighbors that he has, and they are keep strange hours. Not that they are loud or anything, it’s that they seem to be up half the night doing odd things. My friend wouldn’t really elaborate, but I got the idea that it had something to do with a new business they might be thinking up. His father, the guy next door, was telling him that they hope to corner the market on the particular niche that they are hoping to invest in.

Anyways, I was more interested in hearing if my friend was still married, because last I talked he was having some problems. Something about not being able to communicate very well. A lot of times people that are in relationships say the other person doesn’t’ communicate, until they remember that in order to understand what people are saying, you need to really pay attention to them when they speak. And it can be a lot more deeper than just words.

For example, my friend kept telling me that she didn’t like unresolved problems. Now those are two words that can mean pretty much anything. If someone asks me if I have any unresolved problems, I’d say of course I do. Everybody has unresolved problems. The problem with unresolved problems, is that in order to solve them, you need to make sure you are talking about the same unresolved problems, otherwise you might solve something that wasn’t even a problem to begin with.

When she started going on and on about unresolved problems, I thought she was talking about how her father treated her when she was a little girl, and she had all kind of deep emotional issues to deal with whenever she got close to being intimate with somebody. It turns out that her unresolved problem, at least when we were having the discussion, were about a phone bill she had called to inquire about, and the person was rude to her and hung up on her.  But then again, that might be related to her childhood after all, you never know these things unless you can really communicate in such a way that everybody knows exactly what you are talking about.

I was at a seminar once, and the teacher was illustrating this very point. She told everybody to think of a duck. And then she went around and asked everybody what duck they were thinking of. Some were thinking about a rubber duck. Some thought of a duck flying home for the winter. One guy thought of the AFLAC duck.

The point was, that even when thinking about a simple noun like “duck” a room full of people came up with a roomful of different ideas.

Now that is something to think about.

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The Unstoppable Power of Silence

If you are a smoker, or a drinker, or an overeater, and you’ve ever decided to cut back, or quit, you’ve probably heard the advice that you should tell as many other people as you can about your goal, in order to give yourself some social support to keep going, and some social pressure in case you backslide. This can be great advice. Many times I’ve had weight loss bets with friends to keep motivation high. I’m sure you can remember a time when you wanted to achieve a goal, or stop or cut back a habit and have been able to enjoy support form friends and family.

Other, more lofty goals, may require a different tact. These might be better left secret. There is an ancient law of magic that goes as follows:

To Know

To Will

To Dare

To Be Silent

Let’s break them down, shall we?

To Know.

Sounds simple enough. You want to do something. It helps if you know what you are doing. Skills. Techniques. Where to get resources. Many places can help you in this regard. Library. Friends. Mentors. Websites. Humans are by nature, very curious creatures, so finding information can be the easiest part of creating a reality that you desire.

To Will

This is where the fun begins. You have a vague idea of what you want. Happiness, wealth, sexual and emotional intimacy. To will you need to create a plan and make a decision to bring it into being. This is different from a wish, or a hope,  or a longing. This is a strong decision to create what you want, by hook or by crook. Or as the character in Apollo Thirteen put it so succinctly, you must decide that “Failure is Not an Option!”

To Dare

This is the scary part. You’ve decided you want to create a relationship. You’ve studied material on how to be socially adept, how to flirt, how to ask the right questions. You’ve made the decision to make this happen. Now there he or she is. You must walk over and introduce yourself. What separates the Bill Gates and the Tiger Woods and the Oprah Winfreys from the rest of the wanna be hacks is your ability to try and try and try again and again until you get it right. To be able to take action, over and over again, until there world is exactly how you want it. When you realize that life affords you as many chances as you are willing to take, this can be easier. The opportunity of a lifetime comes along just as often as you are prepared to take it.

To Be Silent.

This is where the metaphysical cool stuff starts. Some say that by keeping your goal silent, you build up psychic energy that will increase the your will and your ability to take action over and over again. Some say that you shouldn’t tell others about important goals, because they might give you reasons that you hadn’t thought of as to why you can’t achieve it. Sometimes this can be a blessing. When I was in high school I had decided to run a marathon. I told my best friend, and he told me, with as much good intentions as possible, that he didn’t think I could finish, and I might injure myself. I took this as a challenge, and allowed his disbelief in my ability to spur me on to finish. And hobble around in pain for a few weeks, but that’s another story. 

This is a rare case. Many times when you share your goal with somebody, unless you are a hundred percent decided that you will succeed, even the best intentions can derail you.  Another theory is that if you have a huge goal, even support can derail you. It works like this. Say you want to start your own company. You have this fantastic image in your mind with yourself being successful, with people giving you all kinds of props because of your great business. You use this visualization to pull you through rough patches of doubt. If you tell others, and they believe you and support you, their support and well wishes might take away the attractive pull of your visualization. If people in the present are giving you props for your dreams, the props you imagine receiving in the future might have less effect, and give you less incentive in those times of doubt.

So it boils down to the type of goal you want. If you want to lose weight, or give up a habit, it can help to enlist the support of others. If you want to create something fantastic in your life, be careful who you tell. Perhaps it’s better not to tell anybody until after you’ve already achieved success. If you are lucky enough to have a special relationship with somebody that will support you as much as you support yourself, teamwork can be a great asset. 

Otherwise, be silent. An powerful goal, unspoken to others, can grow to enormous proportions, giving you more power than you’ve ever dreamed. And you may be surprised how being able to tap this power will automatically give you an incredible mastery over reality unknown to most, and envied by many.

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Dig Into The Meaning Of Life One Hundred Percent

One of the reasons I like to study Chinese Characters is because each particular character has it’s own individual meaning. So even if you don’t know how to pronounce a group of characters, you can sort of figure out what the meaning by guessing the combinations. Although sometimes, due to historical anomalies, you get some strange combinations. For example, the combination of “parents” and “cut” yields “kind.”  Most make a bit more sense, but they are interesting nonetheless.

English words, on the other hand, may require a bit of etymological investigation before breaking a word into parts (if that’s the kind of thing you are into.)
For example, ‘century,’ which means one hundred years, is based on the same ‘cent’ which is one hundredth of a dollar, and the ‘cent’ in the centigrade that means one hundred grades (between freezing and boiling of water.) Also in centimeter, and centipede. ‘Ped’ of course meaning foot, as in ‘pedal’ and ‘pedestrian.’

These are just some basic examples, but words are really fascinating when you look below the surface. You can really discover interesting things if you stop and think of the story and history behind things.

Like when I was taking the bus the other day. I was sitting next to this really interesting older woman, who was telling me about her granddaughter who just became engaged to this guy from Bangladesh. And he comes from a very large family, I believe she said six brothers and four sisters, if I recall correctly. And one of the brothers was showing her recently how to make this really spicy Thai dish, but that’s another story. Anyway, this guy was saying that each moment in time space continuum (those are his words, not mine) is an opportunity to really dig underneath reality to discover what is really there.

If you take the time to stop and watch the ‘unfolding’ as he referred to it, you can catch the moment when your thoughts and reality merge. When humans give meaning to events. He said that it is a lot better to stay open as long as possible when interacting with reality, because once you give meaning to something, while it’s not set in stone, it’s a lot more efficient to create the possibility for a more resourceful meaning beforehand, rather than waiting until after the fact.

I wasn’t sure I understood her when she was describing this too me, and I don’t she was able to completely understand it either, because it sounded a lot like some Eastern Philosophies that I’ve read about. I think the gist of it was to stay open, and make sure you don’t give away any meanings to events unless you are really one hundred percent sure you know what happened. And since we are almost never one hundred percent sure of what really ever happens, it’s best to keep an open mind.

Like when you pass by somebody in the hallway, and you say “hi,” and they don’t say “hi” back, it would be best to give the benefit of the doubt, and not assume they are angry at your or something. Otherwise you might get your feelings hurt over something that was only in your head. 

Although the fellow described this in eastern philosophical terms which might have been a bit esoteric, I think we are all talking about the same concept. And because you are reading this, you are likely wise enough to have known about this anyways. I’m sure you already know that giving people the benefit of the doubt and assuming they are most likely operating from some kind of positive intention is usually a good idea.

I just think that the concept of standing back and watching the unfolding of reality is a beautiful concept, one that we don’t take the time to really appreciate, since it is happening all around us, all the time.

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Follow Your Brains Advice to New Realities

If you’ve ever wondered about something that might have caused anxiety concerning an event that may or may not happen, I recently found out something that might help. For example, let’s say you have a meeting with your boss that afternoon. Something important, like your annual review, or you are going to ask for a raise or something else that you’d deem something a little bit less than a walk in the park.

If you are like most normal people, you might start to imagine all kinds of things that will happen. And I’m sure if you take the time to think back, now, about those times before when you used to imagine things that might come to pass, you might realize that they never did. Like if you had a big golf game or something with your boss’s boss, you might have imagined accidental hooking the ball into his head or something. Ok, maybe not that bad, but you get the idea.

And I’m pretty sure that you’ve heard the old saying “Most of the bad stuff that you imagine never happens.” Well, even if you understand that basic principle about the human mind, it doesn’t really help when you are laying in bed and are unable to sleep due the horrific images your brain keeps delivering to you against your consent.

But I was listening to this internet radio show the other day, and there were these two guys talking about the human mind and how it works. Unfortunately I didn’t remember which internet radio station I was listening to, as I was aimlessly surfing like I sometimes do.  Like when you are surfing around the web and find this really cool blog, and you think, wow you really need to read this everyday, but then you can’t remember where it is, so you can’t come back and read it everyday like you’d like to.

So anyway this guy was saying that when people imagine all those horrible things that might happen in the future, it’s really an evolutionary manifestation of a brain early warning system. It’s thinking about all the possible things that might happen, and just kind of giving you a heads up, so you can prepare for the worst. Then he said that if you pay attention to the messages that your brain is giving you, you can kind of imagine how you’d handle whatever situation that you were afraid might come up. As soon as you imagine handling it from a few different angles, it satisfies the brains warning system, and your brain will settle down.

And the other guy was commenting that is evidence of the other old saying: “If you can imagine it, you can create it.” Because why in the world would your brain imagine up something that wasn’t possible to come true? And that simply means, that you can use your anxiety as a starting point to create whatever future reality that you’d like. Just use your imagination to take care of whatever your brain is warning you about, and then just imagine the best possible outcome by preventing it from happening by doing the opposite.

For example, if you imagine your boss yelling at you for being late on a project or something, simply come up some really good reasons why the project is late, and then come up with a few benefits for the project being late, and then hit your boss with these benefits before he gets a chance to even remember that it’s late in the first place. He’ll not only see you as being proactive, which is highly valued in today’s economy, but he’ll think of you as somebody that he can depend on when things get rough.

And it all starts with  having a solid respect for the images that your brain delivers to you, all the time. Once you can tap BOTH the positive and the negative images, which you will start to realize aren’t so negative after all when you use this technique, your world will really open up.

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