Magic, Myth and Metaphysics

Perfection vs Excellence

I’d like to begin this post by stating that I have been not been writing for a month, due to the fact that I’m in transition with my work. A new website will be going up, and my email will change at that point. For now, I’d like to send my deep appreciation to everyone who has added me to their friends, and to let you know that I intend to eventually expand and improve my blog.

My intention is always to provide material from the deepest place of wisdom that I’m currently in touch with! And of course, this constantly changes and evolves. I used to think that I couldn’t presume to offer “deep wisdom” until I knew I’d somehow arrived there. Now I realize that this is an attitude of having to be perfect. Good luck. I now have up on my wall the following quote, from an unknown author:

“Perfection is being right; excellence is being willing to be wrong. Perfection is fear; excellence is taking a risk. Perfection is anger and frustration; excellence is powerful. Perfection is control; excellence is spontaneous. Perfection is judgment; excellence is accepting. Perfection is taking; excellence is giving. Perfection is doubt; excellence is confidence. Perfection is pressure; excellence is natural. Perfection is the destination; excellence is the journey.”

What this boils down to for me is that going for perfection comes from the limited small-self, whereas excellence comes from the state of being in the flow, letting go and letting All That Is run the show through your body/mind. I would add to the quote, “Perfection is effort; excellence is effortless.”

For more information, visit my Seminars page and my Professional Services page, call (831) 212-2168 or email andrea@awakeability.com

Being Authentic

“Be who you are and say what you feel. Because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.”  –Dr. Seuss

Being authentic in the world can be easier said than done. Many people have been raised to feel badly about their own thoughts and opinions; to give themselves a hard time and invalidate their experience. Others may not have a problem expressing themselves, but do so in a way that alienates others, seems too pushy or steamrollers over everybody else. And many people have lost touch with what they actually feel; in their need for approval from the outside, they go along with the crowd.

What is the benefit of being authentic, even to the point of being different? It has to do with integrity. If you are not true to yourself, you give away part of your own power to others. If you express yourself in a way that alienates, you are acting from a place of disconnection. And if you constantly put yourself down, you are undermining your own truth. Being authentic can be difficult when the pressure of a group doesn’t support your truth. But having the courage to state your truth in a respectful way builds self-esteem and personal strength; the strength of conviction and personal authority. These qualities are ones that you want; ones that will serve you for a lifetime.

Remember that you will never be able to please all people. Some people will always disagree with you, and others are determined to never be pleased with anything. Practice the skill of being able to be authentic and realize that other people’s opinions and choices about their own authenticity are about them, not you. And along with this, practice tact in putting out your truth while not invalidating that of others. One good way to do this is to begin with, “In my experience...” This allows you to own what’ so for you, while not putting anyone else down. Others can’t actually deny your experience, so you are able to be truthful while at the same time being gentle.

For more information, visit my Seminars page and my Professional Services page, call (831) 212-2168 or email andrea@awakeability.com

Help in Crisis

“Crises feed on fear. Help others to look for the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit that exists even in the worst situations. If you do this, others will look to you for leadership, and your own fortunes will improve in ways you can't even imagine.”  --Bill Harris

In these times of turmoil, many people are in need of help. While this help is often in terms of physical needs such as a loan, a place to stay or a job, it is often the case that emotional help is just as critical. People’s world views get them into all sorts of emotional trouble; especially the habits of blaming, complaining and justifying or making excuses for their situations.

If you can help someone to see that there is benefit in every situation, you will do them a great service. This may take some creative thinking, and also willingness on his/her part to brainstorm with you. But practicing the habit of thinking positively in every situation will be of huge benefit to both of you. The more you do this, the more benefit you will get; it will be strengthening a beneficial mental muscle.

Of course you must approach this exercise with tact: if someone has just lost a loved one, it may not be the time to push positive thinking on them. And realize that this practice actually goes beyond simple positive thinking. It isn’t simply repeating affirmations about what you want or glossing over situations with “it’s not so bad;” this practice involves looking squarely in the face of what’s happening and finding the benefit in it, even if the benefit doesn’t feel like it’s going to fix the situation. Maybe the benefit of losing a home is that it prompts someone to finally face up to their spending habits. Or the benefit of being out of work may be that someone can take a good hard look at changing careers to something more fitting. Maybe a relationship break up allows someone to come to terms with their own attitudes and behaviors that have helped to create unworkable partnerships. These are all examples of benefits that involve growing into greater mental and emotional health.

If you will help people find solutions, you will benefit from their insights as well as from the process itself. Not only that, you will benefit simply by being of genuine service. I encourage you to use this practice on yourself as well. In times of turmoil, it’s good to have solid grounding in your own center, and be willing to always grow.

For more information, visit my Seminars page and my Professional Services page, call (831) 212-2168 or email andrea@awakeability.com

Meaningful Living

“The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.” --William James

In order to have meaning in your life, it is important to look beyond your own self-interests. It is your love for people and things outside of yourself that brings happiness. Acting on this love to do something that helps the world in some way brings even greater happiness into your life.

I recently went through a training to volunteer to be a visitor for patients on Hospice care. When I went to my first visit the woman, who is in a nursing home, didn’t really seem to want a visitor. She talked a little bit as I asked questions to draw her out, but she didn’t want to be taken outside, or practice walking, or get a hand or shoulder massage, or a foot soak, or be read to. After a couple of visits like this, I began to wonder if my presence was helping her in any way. So I decided to ask—lo and behold, she said she did appreciate my coming, and this revelation sparked a whole new depth of relationship for us! I came away with tremendous happiness that I was making a difference in someone’s life; however small that difference was. The joy of being able to give her some companionship, bring her library books and small gifts of food far outweighs any consideration about the amount of time it takes to drive over to the nursing home and spend a half hour a couple of times a week. As I get to know her and find out more about her life, I am also enriched.

What is it that turns you on? Is it gardening, animals, children, the environment, nature, helping people in need, doing creative crafts, writing, dance, theater, art, sports, airplanes, or some other activity? No matter what you love, there is a way to turn it, at least a bit of time each week, into something that gives to life. If you already do this, you will understand the satisfaction that it gives—it is beyond the activity itself. It gives a sense of self-worth, of belonging, and purpose.

And as William James says, stretching beyond your life to contribute to something that will go on when you are gone gives an even greater depth of purpose. There are thousands of ways to contribute to the future. Finding ways to do so not only with money, but with some of your time will transform your life.

For more information, visit my Seminars page and my Professional Services page, call (831) 212-2168 or email andrea@awakeability.com

Your Thought Is Your Life, Part 3

Your feelings can lead you to your thoughts. It's easy. Bad feelings lead to unhelpful thoughts. Good feelings lead to thoughts that serve you well. And the golden key is that all you really have to do is notice the thoughts, and realize that they aren't you. They are just thoughts. Thoughts can be dropped. It may take time to get out of habitual thoughts, but as soon as you notice them, you have the choice to let them go, in the moment. This is your power. You created the thoughts, the pictures, the story in the first place; it is your power to do with it as you wish.

All you need to do is notice what's working in your thinking and what isn't, by noticing the results you have in life and the emotions you are feeling. Just knowing that you are the one creating the thoughts helps you to detach a bit from them, and allows your common sense to kick in. You can ask, what would a person in my situation (say, broke, or feeling depressed, or in a job or relationship you don't like) have to be thinking in order to allow this situation?

Be willing to look at the contents of your mind. Be willing to notice your thinking. It determines the quality of your life. You can take charge, not by forcing yourself to think different thoughts, but by simply being aware. Learn to stop taking your thoughts so seriously. Just because you think it, doesn't mean it's true. Your best clue is how you feel. The better you feel, the more sane your accompanying thoughts are. The worse you feel--well, learn to avoid acting when you feel bad, because your judgment isn't good at that point. See for yourself if this is so. I salute your magnificent creative thought power! You're using it at all times, whether or not you're liking the current results. Changing your mind is just a thought away, and it's all in the present moment.

For excellent information on thought, I recommend you visit www.healthrealization.com, www.pandacc.com/counseling.html and www.sydneybanks.org.

For more information, visit my Seminars page and my Professional Services page, call (831) 212-2168 or email andrea@awakeability.com

Your Thought Is Your Life, Part 2

Sometimes we don't have a lot of attachment to a thought. We can let it go. Say we like the color blue best, but we aren't attached. Red is good too, and yellow is fine. If we held onto this thought a little more strongly we might say, "Blue is my favorite color. I have lots of blue clothes." And stronger still, we might say, "People should wear more blue, it's such a soothing color. Red and yellow are ugly." Getting a bit obsessed? Holding on more tightly, someone might say "Blue is the best color. It's the only color that's OK to wear. People who don't wear blue are wrong." And a blue maniac might say "There's no such thing as red and yellow. It's all blue."

There are people everywhere, every day who do this, not perhaps with blue, but with many other aspects of the world. A thought, tightly held, becomes a lens through which people see themselves and the world:. "I am smart. I am fat. I am a winner. People are stupid. People are amazing! The universe supports me. ESP is a hoax. Satan is out to get you. It's a dog-eat-dog, survival-of-the-fittest rat race out there. People who aren't of my race are less--or more--than me. God is dead. The Goddess is alive. Nobody cares. No I can't. Yes I can. They are...we have...you shouldn't....money is....war is.... it's OK to....the best...the worst....nobody does...everybody is meant to...I need...." hundreds of times a day. It's all thought. This isn't to say that any of it is bad or wrong. Some of it helps, some of it isn't so helpful to self or others.

We go through how tightly we hold a thought, from "just a thought" to preferences, to strong preferences, to needs, to obsessions. The tightest holding on to thought is what we call "reality." Here, the thoughts are so ingrained that we think our story is the way things are. In the blue maniac example, we would actually perceive no red or yellow, we would block them out; that's how much power our thoughts have. They shape our life. They determine what we set out to accomplish, how we expect to be treated, what we expect to own, how we react to other people, how we feel about everything and anything--especially ourselves.

I encourage you to take a serious look at what you are thinking every day, and to notice how this affects your life. This noticing can be done all throughout the day. Tomorrow’s post will go into how feelings can help with this process.

For more information, visit my Seminars page and my Professional Services page, call (831) 212-2168 or email andrea@awakeability.com

Your Thought Is Your Life, Part 1

"What we think, we become." –Buddha

Every day, we are subject to feelings about all sorts of things: whether or not the car blocking the intersection is moving out of the way fast enough; what the news announcer is saying about the economy; how sweetly the black-eyed barrista at the coffee shop took our order; what our significant other said; whether we are running late; what our bank account is like; the way we look; the funny brown dog romping in the park; the fact that we didn't get quite enough sleep. We feel good about some things and not so good about others. Some of us specialize in feelings such as anxiety and worrying, some in irritation and anger, some perhaps in guilt, and some in positive emotions like happiness.

All of your feelings depend on thought. Thought is the glue that keeps your feelings in place. If you change your thinking, the feelings change. Most people going about their day assume that their feelings come as a result of outside events. "Get the hell out of the intersection!" "Oh no, the stock market is still going down;" "That girl at the coffee shop was really nice, I'm going to give her a big tip;" and so on. But thinking that your feelings are caused by events is illusion, and it's easy to see that this is so. Take any situation, like the blocked intersection, and you have as many different reactions as people involved. Some people don't get irritated at all. Maybe you are only irritated today because you are in a hurry. Across the way, someone else is mad and honking. To your left, someone is listening to the radio and smiling, not paying attention at all. And the person on your right is thinking, "Well, I've done that before without meaning to, there's no point in getting upset."

If feelings were caused by events, everybody would feel the same about the blocked intersection. But feelings are caused by your thinking. They are your guidance system from deep inside, as to what your thoughts actually are, and whether they are serving you. It's amazing that although people have a continuous stream of thoughts day in and day out, they often don't really pay attention to them. They react instantly to them with emotion--positive or negative--but don't realize the patterns, the beliefs, the story that they have created about ourselves and the world.

In order to change your life, you have to change the way you think about it, bringing what has been subconsciously running you to the surface. Fortunately, although it takes attention, this is not hard to do. Tomorrow’s post will continue these ideas about the importance of thought. Stay tuned!

For more information, visit my Seminars page and my Professional Services page, call (831) 212-2168 or email andrea@awakeability.com

Reframing Problematic Language

When we are communicating to someone about negative feelings we have, there are certain words that create more problems than they solve. They create problems because they communicate a judgment or implied blame of the other person along with the feeling of the speaker. Nonviolent Communication, a method developed by Marshall Rosenberg (see www.cnvc.org ) has a brilliant way of reframing these 2-in-1 hybrid words which I’d like to share. First, let me give some examples of hybrid words. “I feel...”

accused

overwhelmed

pressured

judged

put down

dumped on

blamed

belittled

smothered

betrayed

manipulated

patronized

ripped off

unappreciated

overworked

hassled

misunderstood

The reason these words create problems is twofold. First, they are harder for the other person to hear; they generate near-automatic defensiveness. Secondly, they disempower the speaker, who has just given over control of her/his feelings to someone else: “YOU made me feel this way.”

The suggestion from Rosenberg is that instead of using these words, you substitute feeling words that relate only to yourself, and then a short explanation as to why. So instead of “I feel unappreciated because you forgot our anniversary,” you could say, “When you forgot our anniversary, I felt sad because I need to feel cared for.” Notice that the second sentence takes “you” out entirely, while the first has not only a hybrid work but “you didn’t do” in it. Another example might be that instead of saying “I’m being overworked,” instead saying “When I’m given more assignments than I can reasonably finish in the allotted time, I feel anxious because I want to do a good job.” Or maybe that last part would be “...I feel resentful because I value feeling respected for my work.” (Notice I didn’t say “I’m feeling disrespected.” That would be another hybrid word.)

Working to notice the use of language in communication is incredibly empowering. If you will take the time beforehand to look at your authentic experience and reframe a feeling that is coming up as one or more hybrid words before making the communication, you will stand a much better chance of having a constructive outcome. Although it takes practice, it brings exceptionally positive results.

For more information, visit my Seminars page and my Professional Services page, call (831) 212-2168 or email andrea@awakeability.com

Anticipate Pleasant Surprises

To anticipate pleasant surprises is to move out of habitual patterns of thinking that may have arisen from less than satisfying experiences in the past, to embody a shift in your reality. You can counteract negative anticipation by noticing when you are expecting an outcome like ones you have had in the past where you were disappointed, and consciously choosing to anticipate something more fulfilling in regards to your future.

When you do this, you can feel the difference in the way the two thoughts make you feel. One will feel more contracted and the other more expansive. If you allow the more contracted feeling to really rise to the surface of your awareness and then allow it to just dissolve, you can then choose to anticipate the new outcome. This may not shift the outer world immediately so that everything in your life is a bed of roses at the snap of a finger! You may have to practice this again and again. But if you consistently take up this practice, you will be choosing a new pattern of experience that is more in alignment with your own fulfillment.

You may see all sorts of old resistances to making this change come up, such as not believing it’s possible to have different experiences by anticipating better things than you used to; feeling angry, sad or hopeless about your life; or feeling like you don’t deserve better. If you realize that these can all be welcomed, felt, and then gently released “just for now,” over time, your experience will indeed shift. Your thoughts will align with the new pattern, the happier more fulfilled pattern.

As part of this practice, it’s very important that you look for, notice and acknowledge pleasant surprises when they do happen. This represents your own affirmation that changing your thoughts around your experience is indeed working, and creating positive results in your life. The following two statements are given by Akasha, an angelic being who is channeled through a man named Usa (see www.akashaonline.com):

·         I just LOVE pleasant surprises!

·         Things always work out better than I anticipated.

If you will apply this practice consistently, you will see results. Here’s to your happy life!

For more information, visit my Seminars page and my Professional Services page, call (831) 212-2168 or email andrea@awakeability.com

Loving Conditionally and Unconditionally

Most of us love in a conditional way. Since we aren’t fully aware in each moment of the divine, all-knowing, all-loving presence living as us, we fail to notice it in others as well. We believe ourselves to be separate from the other, and our attention focuses mainly on what we perceive as our own needs. The condition we put on our love is “when you behave in the way I want and give me what I (as a separate self) need, I love you.” The feeling of love comes and goes according to how satisfied we feel in having our needs and desires met.

Look into your own experience to see if this is true. Do you get angry when you feel you are not being treated in the way you want? Do you sometimes treat your loved ones badly, trying to control them? Do you experience separation from them a good deal of the time? I am not saying here that you must allow yourself to be abused or feel guilty because you are not an unconditionally loving saint or bodhisattva. Most of us are in the state of loving conditionally. It is a state we can move out of if we so wish. We can become more loving and compassionate by becoming aware of ourselves. The change usually happens gradually as we notice and let go of our habitual reactions, beliefs and patterns.

Self-compassion and releasing our own limited, personal thoughts and attitudes come before being able to love others more fully. The self is the only place where change happens. Lester Levenson, the creator of the Sedona Method, said, “If you don’t like the world out there, change yourself,” and he also said, “It’s impossible to be hurt when we love fully.” Loving unconditionally means being identified with the part of ourselves that is beyond conditions—the infinite, eternal source presence—and seeing this same presence manifesting as the other.

From this perspective, it doesn’t make any difference who the other is or what they do: we see that they are infinite, eternal source presence manifesting in a particular human form. Realizing this, we feel compassion for them if they are in a state of unawareness that causes them to feel hurt or act out in hurtful ways. Our compassion stems from knowing what it’s like to be in the pain of separation—we’ve been through it ourselves! We come to realize that everyone is doing the best they know how to do, given the beliefs, habits and attitudes that they have.

For more information, visit my Seminars page and my Professional Services page, call (831) 212-2168 or email andrea@awakeability.com