First world problems

First world problems

Yet another night when all the house smoke alarms turn on in orchestral unison at 3am. 8 days of this in a row will keep the entire family awake and sleep deprived. All the alarms will have to replaced. The wife's cell phone malfunctions and is irreparable, need to get another one. The cooking range hood motor seized, guess I am going to have to call someone to fix that. My car is at the mechanics and looks like the engine may have to be replaced piece by piece. The stereo system in the family room has suddenly decided not to play any of the music that it is meant to play. Well that was a waste.

Overwhelmed, frustrated, I threw my hands to the heavens asking for redemption and understanding as to why am I incurring the wrath of the machine technology gods. My mind slowly drifts to the article that I read about the hunger and the famine in many countries. My heart melts and I realize the seemingly insignificance of my inconveniences. These people have no home, and I am worrying about smoke alarms  in my house. They have no communication abilities yet are able to relate to one another without the cell phone. They use an open fire in front of their shanty home without any use of a range hood. The only transportation they know is that which isbelow their waist or on the back of a domestic animal. The only music that many of these people hear is the singing of their own voices or that of the birds.

I wake up to the realization that these are first world problems and no matter how overwhelming they are still related to an inconvenience and not a survival necessity. When millions have no access to food, water, healthcare, shelter or education and are in a constant state of stress and unfortunately due to their situation they may never ever get out of their predicaments. When we look at another's life through their eyes we can shift perspectives and unleash compassion. Compassion means literally to suffer with someone else. We all know this differentiation of first world problems and third world troubles, yet we still grumble and get upset when the microwave doesn't work or the ice dispenser malfunctions or a light bulb goes out, or the coffee machine misbehaves. I would offer a simple pause, and looking at my inconvenience offer a silent blessing and love to anyone on the planet who is less fortunate than me. This innocent act resets my anger to one of compassion and gets me back to a state of balance. Once more patient and centered I can focus on resolving my problem calmer, more expediently and effectively.

Holding space for someone else with compassion inherently helps heal us as well.
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I love you 

Finding the time for excuses and a Practical tip

Finding the time for excuses and practical tip #1784

I find myself complicating my life by the moment. More tasks, more chores, more interests, more more more. I want to learn 1000 new hobbies, i want to experience 1000 new adventures, I want to try to do 1000 new tasks , I want to eat 1000 new foods, I want to visit 1000 new places. More more more. Yet what hinders me is the creation of a 1000 mental blocks saying that I cannot do this or that because.......

Excuses are my fill in the blanks. And believe me I have 1000 excuses for everything. So do you. It is human nature. It is our nature to want to learn, experience, try new things and expand our consciousness and awareness and grow. We are not meant to shrink away and hide, but expand and grow.  Yet it is also human nature to desire to hide in an effort to not shine bright due to fear of not being good enough or not worthy enough. I am keenly aware of the top things that I value most in my life and want to achieve, yet I am also keenly aware of the top daily chores that I have come to believe that must be done BEFORE I can have the satisfaction of doing and achieving my valuable goals. And so begins the moment to moment battle for time and balance.

I have discovered that I will never have enough time to do ONLY my prized goals such as meditate, travel, learn, exercise, write, etc. as there is no such thing as dedicated time to do only what I want as I do not live in a vacuum of only me. I live in a world of work, family, distractions. This is responsibility. Nor will I have ever have enough time to do the top chores and complete them such as tidying up the house, do laundry, do the bills, fix the odds and ends in the house, as I am sure you can attest to, the moment one task is done another 10 are  ready to take its place. You tidy up one room, you turn around and the child or cat has knocked something down and you have to clear up the smashed glass, the clock reminds you that dinner has to be made, you barely do that then  the buzzer of the loads of laundry has to be folded and the moment that is done a child pick up has to be undertaken, and before you know it you are back to square one and tidying up is back on the priority list. This is the nature of life and living.

Nature abhors a vacuum, and so your time will be filled with tasks either of your choosing or be chosen for you. This is state of nature's consciousness.
I am certainly not advocating you dump all your chores to someone else and ignore your duties and then sit in monk fashion awaiting the state of zen to arrive. Believe me I have tried. It doesn't end well. It leaves you with more work, angry and frustrated life co-participants and dissatisfaction of never achieving soul purposeful goals. Akin to running a karmic treadmill. You can keep running till you die, and never really get anywhere. Fulfilling your soul purpose is soul empowering, flooding your day with non soul purpose chores is soul disempowering.

Yet it is certainly possible to interlace the two. While idly waiting for a pick up I can sit and read in the car, or while folding laundry listen to the music I have been waiting to experience, or waiting for the oven to cook I can journal and write for a few minutes, sitting a the doctors office for an appointment I can meditate. If you actually sit for a few minutes and map out your day and find the time between distractions and the mundane chores of top priorities you can find the time that you will need to focus on your higher valued goals. The only thing left is to implement them. It may appear hard at first, but subsequent lifestyle changes and habit formation help to expand every minute into a longer time period to do what you desire most to better lead a happier balanced life. Your choice of what to do with the gaps in time. You can scoop them up or discard them to the wind of time. Again no one will ever hand you a chunk of time to do what you value most, as that does not happen for them either. Chores don't go away. Your heart's most cherished purposes don't go away but it can be left unattended to and a life is spent unfulfilled.

Practical tip #1784
1. Write down your most highest value goals in life. Be honest and not fantasy driven. Such as to learn a new skill, to read about an interesting topic, to travel to a place you have always wanted to go to. ( these may evolve and shift as you grow)
2. Rewrite your highest goals in order of priority ( this helps weed out our fantasy from reality..... such as want to become  an Olympic ballerina to i want to learn how to dance... which is more practical
3. Write down ALL the chores or distractions that keep you "busy" each day. Start from the most menial to the most time intensive ( e.g. Laundry to job)
4. Space out your distractions by time
5. See the opportunities based on time to do the things you really want to do.( even if it is for a few minutes)
6. Interlace the two.
7. Do it for a day, then a week, then a month

You will gradually see a shift from your day being full of meaningless chores sprinkled with your heart felt valuable goals that have not been given attention, to a  lifetime focusing on your highest goals sprinkled with chores that are just part of life.

This is my high priority goal to accomplish this, suspect you would like to play in this experiment too.
...............
I love you

Inviting guests

Inviting guests.

There are two guests that we invite into the homes of our hearts on a regular basis. One knowingly and the other unknowingly. Their names are Love and Fear respectively. But understand this well that both were invited by you. They are offered seats of prominence and given importance. If one is given more, then the outcome will be just that. Yet both are there for your well being. When each is given their rightful voice and offerings they will serve you well and restore balance in your being.

The mind offers homage to the fear from the conditioning of lifetimes, yet the heart offers shelter to the love that is connects from the soul. We spend an eternity trying to get rid of one guest, fear  and to replace with another, love, without acknowledging either sufficiently. Would you have two guests in your home arrive and mistreat one over the other? Unlikely. So why do the same with love and fear. Why discriminate? It is the lack of respect that fear receives that makes it so insistent on staying and not leaving with grace.

We have been conditioned to fear fear and love love, and remain forever in a polarity of consciousness when in fact neither is anything but the manifestation of love. When heeding the words of fear without reaction, giving it space and welcome with just as much care as you do love, you allow for the integration, and the metabolization of fear to then transform into the only thing that it can, Love.

Love then becomes the only true guest that remains in the home of your heart. Fear and love are not divisible. Fear arrives only in disguise of love. Who will receive your guests today? Your mind or your heart?
................
I love you

The riddle of consciousness

A Riddle of Consciousness

We are constantly oscillating in states of illusion and reality with out ever vibrating slow enough to understand the difference or high enough to see the big picture.
We believe that matter is the reality yet matter is only a state of infinite particles in constant motion dense enough to perceive it as matter or reality. They are in fact broken down into not just particles but waves of energy known as quantum reality which is no matter but in fact strings of potential. This is manifest as will, love, and possibility. So reality now becomes an illusion once dissolved into its original form.
Once you observe the potential with lower vibrational senses does it manifest into outcomes of our choosing as it returns back into this dense particle of "reality".

So the reality we live in is simply the summation of infinite potential energy, and we attempt to create it within time and space never realizing that time and space exist within it. The state of consciousness is  what we are, not what we are in. When we try to imagine our reality we are creating, and manifesting this consciousness on to the canvas of the universe much as an artist paints their imaginary works on to their canvas. When, how and what we experience are all activities that we partake of within this state of consciousness. So thoughts, feelings, sensations, actions are all but experiences that are activities within this vast field of consciousness.

The idea of separateness is one from the egoic mind, perpetuating the illusion. The heart alone opens the gateway to the knowing of the oneness of the universe and the soul. This portal allows us to distinguish reality and illusion and not be captured by the minds prison delusion of reality and illusion.

Love is the portal to the understanding and the living of the consciousness of One as nothing is separate as all is Light and all is energy, all is waves of potential. We observe, we are the modes of the observation and we are the objects of observation and so all can exist simultaneously in the paradigm of consciousness.

You are you.
You are I.
I am you.
I am that I am
......................
I love you

Fire fire

Fire Fire....

There are some elements that when yelled out loud make us nervous. I mean if you yell out "water" or " wind" or "earth" you may not get the same response as " fire." In our psyche this element has been known to more commonly cause a high potential for loss of life or property. Now take this into a different context it would give more or less  of an impact. Such as screaming " fire" in a movie house. This would evoke fear, anger, confusion, panic, and result in a stampede and a whole host of other problems as people try to hastily exit the establishment. Fight or flight hormones would activate with all sorts of neuro transmitters firing in the brain to initiate a cascade of emergent and urgent strategies. Heart rates rise, blood pressures soar and eyes widen with the beginnings of flight. 

Now take a reversed context. If one would yell " Movie" in a fire house. This is not only absurd but laughable and would more than likely engage emotions of laughter, joy, relaxation and fun. This scenario evokes the parasympathetic nervous system of calming down, rest, and enjoyment. Hormones reflecting the same travel the blood stream, and create a happier and joyous mind, after all who does not want to take a little time and have some recreation. 

Lets take this one step further. Shouting out hateful and hurtful words in a crowded place or even towards one other being, evokes the fear and flight response to the aggressor and the victim of the abuse. Going in slow motion through the process the aggressor has to first injure their soul and their heart raped  with the thought of hate that will  then lead to anger and the surge of sympathetic  hormones reaches all the organs  of the body long before the angry words are even uttered. Now the victim has an equal response to the spouted out words.  They will be first taken by surprise and off guard and then the defense mechanisms kick in. Physically they shrivel back, mentally their executive centers shut down and their hormones surge with the same hormones of fight or flight as the words travel to their ears then to their brain and then to their emotions, which all cascade down to their heart and soul and then the cycle starts anew with a response after being hurt. Either they run away or they fight and repeat the cycle to the other person. 

 On the contrary yelling " Love" in a crowded room or to another person, will emanate happiness and feelings of joy regardless of who you tell it to. Such is the nature of the energy and power of this four letter word. It vibrates at a much higher frequency and so replaces lower ones. This word changes the vibrations when uttered as it whizzes past the ear drum into our brains, bodies, hearts and soul. This word transforms the feelings of hate in to a much higher frequency. Energetically there is an alchemy that manifests with great storm. 

So the next time you meet a hateful person spewing racially charged or gender focussed views or any form of derogatory words, regardless of who that person is, simply take a breath, and yell back " I love you." You may think this is so absurd, but yes it is absurd enough to throw them off balance and disarm them. Do it to yourself first when you are at your angriest and most frustrated. Look in the mirror and disarm yourself first. Only a heart filled with love will afford the opportunity of saying "  I love you" with it being genuine. 

Remember simply that by giving in to a fear and hate filled person    with more fear you are only  allowing them to become more  powerful. They turn into a bully, and more of a person of power. 

Focus. Breathe. Change your perspectives with love. 

In the glass house

In the glass house

I look up within my prison of fears and I see the transparency of my dreams that lies await for me.I am trapped in my great mind, with an unbending ego as my cell mate with the charges of my haunting  past. It is here where my life stands still, never allowing me to move forward. It is in this fragile glass house of an experience I exist. In this timeless prison I find the demons of my vulnerabilities taunting me to a life of platitude and complacency. I struggle to shout out and to be heard yet my mind is the warden to my soul as I am afforded little freedom of expression of my heart.

Within  this captivity I have forged a  new learning and understanding. The wisdom of compassion. Slowly the embers of love have coalesced to form a raging fire within my heart that allows nothing to diminish it and nothing can withstand its power. A radiant sun is born deep and now is unearthed. The mind trembles with the light, the ego fears its new freed mate and my chains of the past no longer hold their strength. 

Yet one last fear remains. To leap through the vulnerabilities of my fragile mind and grasp my destiny. Why does it still linger? Is it a lack of courage, or faith or wisdom? No. none of these. It lies in the desire to allow that fire to burn infinitely bright and allow it the opportunity to blaze through all the walls on all sides and reach out to destinations yet unseen. It is in this allowing that I will witness my freedom. It is in this acknowledgment of the flame of my love of my soul that enables the price of my imprisonment to be overpaid above and beyond and with it set me free. 

What holds you back? What prison are you trapped in? Whatever, or whoever it is, the opportunity for freedom is in your grasp. Your light of your divine love has been always  watching you from the other side and waiting for you to lift the veils of your limited experiences. Your beacon is in your sight, and now is not the time to close your eyes, but to smash through every limitation and rise.

Step out of your glass house and breath the fresh air of love. 

 

heart felt apologies

Heart felt apologies

There are times when I have felt anger towards another. There are times where you may have felt regret towards another. There are times when we feel envious or jealous of another individual. All these emotions are human and yet drag us down, inhibiting our progress. These feelings  reveal the worst within our character. It is in this unveiling of flaws that we have a opportunity to make whole all the wrongs that we feel. Bitterness, jealousy, hate and anger are all aspects of our fears gone awry. Fear comes from the lack of control of external environments which in this modern era we cannot hope to control even if we desperately tried, and so the search of our own self control begins. If this too is left adrift I try to control my outside stimuli, to which I falter almost all the time. 

The process of bridging the gap of negative to positive emotions is done by apologies. Yet it is not easy to simply apologize to the person that has been wronged. When the raw wound remains salted there is precious little chance of healing. What if the person you choose to apologize has passed or un reachable  to contact? Then the guilt of all these emotions lay unresolved on the dry desert of your psyche. What do we do? Should we succumb to the haunting torture of our own mind creations of negativity? How do we tackle the fabrications of our ego that have led us astray? Simply put, we apologize. But to whom? 

I apologize to myself. I tender to my torn heart with as much care as I would another's with acknowledgment of the pain that I have caused my heart through egoic constructs of jealousy, envy, hate and anger that were never real to begin with. It is in this surrender that the rains of forgiveness can sweep away the pain. This does not mean that it was ever acceptable if that other person hurt you in any way. That is a different side of the story that needs replaying and reprocessing. This is only for our own emotions that made us create a dramatic story in our minds from unhealed timelines and triggers of our past. 

Self apology. Understanding. Acceptance of a wrong that I created provides accountability. It affords the responsibility for the wound.  This is the first step in the healing of a heart that has been worn out by the onslaught of a mind that is attempting to survive. Once this patience with one self has been made to be present, the apology towards another dissolves with the negative emotions carried in tow.

You are not broken and do not need fixing. Only our heart needs attention. It is time I apologize to my ever present heart.