Death & Rebirth

In honor of Easter Sunday, I felt inspired to do a blog on death and rebirth…the two continuums on our journey to reaching a state of peace, love, and joy (shifting out of ego and into spirit).  Each time we fall prey to ego, it is necessary to metaphysically die to that illusion in order to awaken in spirit (truth).  Ego leads us to a state of suffering on some level, whether it is through fear, unworthiness, anger, or feeling discontent.  Spirit, on the other hand, leads us out of all suffering and places us in a state of contentment (peace, love, and joy).  Our ability to experience the comfort and peace that spirit provides is based in our ability to consistently dispel the illusions (suffering) that ego produces.   Ego’s only goal is to keep us from knowing truth (that we are meant to live in a state of peace, love, and joy).  I have come to see that the way to move from suffering (illusion) to peace (truth) is through Humility and Forgiveness (of self and others).

Using humility and forgiveness to continuously shift out of ego and into spirit has opened me to a spiritual awakening.  It has led me to the depth of my being, such that I could begin to express myself from an infinite supply of love.  Instead of acting from a predetermined protocol (ego’s rigid structure), my actions are now moved by spirit.  I listen for where and what I am being guided to do (versus blindly/unconsciously acting from old conditioning).  I allow what is supposed to come, to come (instead of trying to control the outcome).  In letting go of the fear that surrounds the desire to control, life has become more exciting.  Instead of constantly trying to fill in the blanks of the unknown, I am excited to live in the mystery of its unfolding.  Instead of being driven by fear of the unknown, I have surrendered to it, trusting that a higher intelligence (God/intuition) is guiding me.  Restlessness had turned to peace.  It has opened me to living on the cusp of non-being and being, such that I can connect to Divine guidance and bring it forth.  I have surrendered my will to God’s will for me and ask that He be the guiding force in my awareness.  I have come to see that anything else is to live a false version of the life I was intended to live.

As a way of staying open to this awakened state, I enter situations with the awareness that I choose to be of spirit.  However, even with this awareness, ego still sneaks up on me.  For this reason, I know that I have to be vigilant.  I have to consistently assess my thoughts and behaviors from the perspective of ego versus spirit and use the tools of forgiveness and humility to move between the two.  I share this as a way of encouraging you to do the same.  Assessing ordinary experiences, from this perspective, has the power to have a significant influence on one’s conscious awakening (that has been and continues to be my journey).

When  we become comfortable with the process of death and rebirth (dying to our false self in order to awaken to our authentic self), the process becomes easier.  We more easily and readily open ourselves to turning to forgiveness and humility each time ego catches us off guard.  With discipline and consistency, a snowball effect begins to occur.  Before long, the cumulative effect of these small shifts in awareness begin to have a significant impact on our spiritual awakening.

I am a firm believer in using everyday experiences as a way of identifying when ego is intruding on our awareness.  In catching these intrusions, we keep ego from derailing us from aligning with the life that we are meant to live.  We keep ego from impacting our ability to have an authentic encounter with life.  The objective assessment of everyday experiences offers us a chance to die to ego’s influences, such that we are able to awaken in the arms of spirit.  In the video blog below, I share a recent experience, where I had to do this.  Again, I share this with you as a way of encouraging you to do the same.  I believe that it can have a tremendous impact on your life (at least it has on mine).

Happy Easter & Always Shine Brightly!

Death and Rebirth

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Spreading Joy Year Round

Hi Everyone,

Welcome back to my blog.  Now that we are fully immersed in the holidays, I wanted to take a look at what we can do to stay centered in our spirits such that we can spread joy year round.

In order to set the stage for this blog, I wanted to share something that Thomas Merton, a Catholic Monk, wrote in Choosing to Love the World.  As a heads up, he is long winded in his sentences, but he seems to have enough commas to slow us down such that we can digest what he is conveying.  I was really drawn to this passage, even though, admittedly, I had to read it a few times to fully digest it.  I think he nails down the major impediment regarding our ability to spread joy year round.  In the following passage, he illustrates the root cause to the problems that we experience, which, is also what impedes are ability to stay centered in the spirit.  He says:

 The aggressive and dominative view of reality places, at the center, the individual with its bodily form, its feelings and emotions, its appetites and needs, its loves and hates, its actions and reactions.  All these are seen as forming together a basic and indubitable reality to which everything else must be referred, so that all other things are also estimated in their individuality, their actions and reactions, and all the ways in which they impinge upon the individual self.  The world is then seen as a multiplicity of conflicting and limited beings, all enclosed in the limits of their own individuality, all therefore complete in a permanent and vulnerable incompleteness, all seeking to find a certain completeness by asserting themselves at the expense of others, dominating and using others.  The world, then, becomes an immense conflict in which the only peace is that which is accorded to the victory of the strong, and in order to taste the joy of this peace, the weak must submit to the strong and join them in their adventures so that they may share in their power.

This describes the inverted view of the world that the ego attempts to establish as truth.  Blind to this illusion, we find ourselves trapped and motivated by this thinking.  When bound by this illusion, our thoughts and actions only serve to perpetuate the immense conflict of the world.

The problem with placing the individual self, or our ego, at our center, is that it sets us up to seek completion through someone or something that is outside of us.  We recognize that there is a void within us and are searching to fill it, but, unfortunately, we continue to come up empty-handed as our search is aimed in the wrong direction.  Blind to this, our desire to feel complete is misguided, and is instead, led through an attempt to dominate others.

Every conversation (or argument) is an opportunity for us to claim a victory through being right.  Every competition is a chance to be number one.  Every promotion is a chance to elevate our status.  Unfortunately, each victory leaves us wanting another one.  Like a hunger pang that never goes away, we are never satisfied.

Our attempts to dominate can be subtle, but regardless, they still add to the conflict of the world.  It can be as simple as demanding a certain behavior from another person (we want someone to treat us better, to make us feel special, to return love to us, to compliment us, to show up for us in some way, to return an email or phone call…the examples are endless). Another way to look at our demands is to see that any attempt to control another person’s behavior, falsifies the purity of their action.  We have taken away their ability to act purely in our demand that they complete us.

When we place demands on others, we are vulnerable to all of the mood swings of the ego.  If demands are unmet, we become angry or hurt.  If previously met demands are no longer being met (the loss of love), we feel the loss of that which were relying upon to feel complete, and again, become vulnerable to the mood swings of the ego.

Our dependence on others to complete us is causing us to act crazy!  When we are caught up in all of this craziness, we are blind to opportunities to help others.  That is the crux of the problem.  We are spending our time and energy adding to the immense conflict of the world, when we could be using that same time and energy to help others.

In this state, we are cut off from spirit, isolated in our limitedness, and frustrated.  Our frustration stems from the manner in which we are attempting to reach salvation (wholeness).  In this state, salvation is being sought through the dominion over others.  Comparisons matter because salvation is sought through being considered superior to others.  Everything is measured against the individual self to determine self-worth.  Accomplishments and status matter for this reason only.  If we want to genuinely and authentically center ourselves in the qualities of the spirit, we must break free of this thinking.

Self-worth should not vary from person to person.  Self-worth should be considered equal across all, because we are all one at the level of spirit.  To assign self-worth across individuals is to place varying values on human life.  If we cannot come to value all of human life equally, we will never be able to live in the awareness of truth (that we are all one and connected to Source).  Anything that fosters superiority or separation is of the ego and will continue to blind us to truth.  Fortunately, we can change this by becoming vigilant about unmasking the darkness that obscures truth.

When we place, at the center, our spirit, this entire world view is inverted.  Salvation is sought and realized through Source.  Strength is found in our connection to Source, thus, we have no need to prove our strength through the dominion of others.  Wholeness, completion, and salvation are found in our connection to Source, which further eliminates are need to dominate.  In this state, the desire to dominate dissipates in favor of finding ways to serve and to help others.  Victory, being right, being number one, and elevating one’s status no longer matters.  We finally see the chase as the illusion that it is.

When we are no longer chasing these illusions, we can position ourselves to be an instrument of God’s work/will, emotional healing through the higher energies of the spirit, as well as an instrument of peace, love, and joy.  This is how we began to disentangle ourselves from the immense conflict that Thomas Merton references.

It all starts with our individual choice to align with our spirit over ego.  I believe we each have a role to bring about peace within ourselves so that we can each disengage from the illusion of conflict.  In doing so, light will be brought to the illusion of conflict such that it is dispelled.  Peace is available to all of us in this simple choice.  This is how we stay centered in our spirit such that we can spread joy year round.

I have to say that the idea of “staying centered in my spirit” was seriously tested as I tried to upload the following video.  I tried to keep my frustration in check knowing that that was definitely of the ego, but it still, unfortunately, flared up!  Even though I was conscious to the fact that it was happening, it took some major effort to get back to being calm and centered in the spirit.  I guess it’s appropriate that this would happen as I tried to share a blog about staying centered in the spirit.  Peace, Love, & Joy…even if it takes effort!

Spreading Joy Year Round

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Two Wolves

Hey Everyone…long time, no post!  I haven’t lost sight of my blog, even though it may seem that way.  I have fully immersed myself in a spiritual self-study course and I’m happy to share what I am learning with all of you.  I see this blog and other things that I am working on as a way to help others along their journey.  I’m just the middle person sharing these wonderful insights that I’m gleaning in my own path as a way to possibly help others along their own journey.  Maybe I can serve as just the nudge you need to move one step closer to aligning with your truest nature or to find your route to inner peace.  I know the Universe has nudged me in a plethora of manners, sometimes overt and sometimes a little covert, so who knows what might be your next sign post!  Maybe it’s my little blog.   On with the meat of the blog…

In this blog, I wanted to talk about the two halves of ourselves, our ego and our spirit.  My Mom recently emailed me a concise description of the two that I think beautifully and concisely illustrates the qualities of each.

An old Cherokee told his grandson, “My son, there is a battle between two wolves inside us all.  One is Evil…it is anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, inferiority, lies, and ego.  The other is Good…it is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy, and truth.”  The boy thought about it…and asked, “Grandfather, which wolf wins?”  The old man quietly replied, “The one you feed.”

I use the word ego in place of evil and spirit in place of good, but the definition of the two still holds.  I would also add guilt, fear, superiority, and frustration to the list of attributes of the ego and acceptance, patience, and tolerance to the attributes of the spirit.

Depending on which half we are more identified with, determines our perception of the world.  We feed our perception through the emotions that are associated with the half that we choose to predominantly invest in.  For the most part, we have some level of investment in both, but to what extent is one half ruling us?  And given the choice, would you shift your level of investment from one to the other?  

The purpose of this blog is to help us become more aware of which half we are predominantly identified with so that we can determine if we want to continue status quo or if we would rather make some changes.  These blogs are all about awareness so that we can become conscious of our choices.  No more hiding behind our circumstances.  Whatever the situation is, we have a choice in how we view and handle it.

The bulk of this blog is in the attached video, where I dig deeper into what it means to either be invested in the ego or the spirit. 

Two Wolves

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Practicing Gratitude

Welcome back to my blog! It’s been a bit of a longer stretch since the last time we’ve connected, but that just means I’ve covered more ground and have that much more to share this time. =)

This week I wanted to talk about gratitude and why practicing gratitude is so important in this choice to bring about more peace and joy in our lives. A lot of times people might think the advice to practice gratitude is like a slap in the face, especially if the person hearing the advice finds themselves frustrated, angry, or annoyed with the things that are going on in their life. They might hear, “Quit your whining and be happy with what you’ve got!” or “Stop dreaming so big and be humble!”

Regarding the first statement, “Quit your whining and be happy with what you’ve got”, there is a basic truth to the essence of the statement, but practicing gratitude is not about repressing your anger and slapping on a happy face. It’s about cultivating a shift that moves you from anger and aligns you with peace and contentment, which is a more natural state of being. In cultivating this perspective as a choice, the anger will begin to let go of you versus you trying to force the anger away. Gratitude aligns you with spirit. It helps you to see the beauty of what is right in front of you. It brings you to the present moment, which is where life is taking place. Life is not happening in a past memory or an anticipated future event, it’s happening right now. Practicing gratitude creates the space for goodness to come into your life. If you are angry, pessimistic, or frustrated, you’re focusing on what is missing in your life, which leaves no room for goodness to enter. Even if goodness did enter, you wouldn’t recognize it because it wouldn’t fit your belief about lack or whatever you’re angry, annoyed, or frustrated with.

Practicing gratitude shifts your perspective to one that focuses on abundance, goodness entering your life, beauty, peace, and feeling content. You may interpret the idea of feeling content as the statement mentioned earlier, “Stop dreaming so big and be humble!” I would never advocate anything less than dreaming big (though I could challenge the motivation behind your dream, but that’s for another blog). How gratitude works in this situation is that it cultivates patience to allow the necessary time for dreams to manifest. Gratitude also fosters momentum as you recognize the various successes that are occurring, whereas impatience starts to foster lack. Practicing gratitude maintains a focus on goodness and abundance, which keeps the door open for more of the same to enter as your dream continues to manifest.

Gratitude puts an immediate focus on the beauty and goodness that is already in your life. In my experience, it immediately fills me up with an overwhelming sensation of peace. It shows that happiness is in the present moment and isn’t something that is reached somewhere down the road when outside conditions are met (including the big dream that you may be working to manifest).

In the video below, I delve more into some of the things that I do to cultivate gratitude in my life and I also talk in more detail about beliefs, perspectives, choices and the meaning we assign to them.

Hot Tip: Let the video load completely before attempting to watch it in order to avoid the inevitable buffering!

Practicing Gratitude

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Personal Responsibility

Hi All,

Thank you so much to those of you who took an interest in my initial blog kickoff and to those of you who are joining me for this one. Just to reiterate my vision for this blog; it is my attempt to encourage others to begin making changes in their lives such that they can begin living their authentic lives. I use the term authentic life to describe living a life that is in line with your heart’s desire. I believe it is the only way to find true fulfillment, which is something that I believe a lot of us are searching for, whether we recognize it or not.

I don’t think living your authentic life has to mean, though it could, uprooting your current life. Also, living your authentic life doesn’t necessarily mean going after the only dream you’ve ever had for yourself, though, again, it could. I recently watched Oprah interview Rob Lowe and I think he made a pretty profound statement when he said, (paraphrasing) “If you would have asked me in my early 20s what my dream was, I would have said being in a Martin Scorsese film, but God had other plans.” He went on to say that his life’s dream was met through his loving and committed relationship with his best friend and wife of 23 plus years. I thought the statement was beautiful and profound on multiple levels. It showed that sometimes (many times) the initial dreams we set for ourselves are not necessarily the answers to our happiness and it shows that perspective is everything. He could have easily written his story about the same events very differently but he had the foresight not to do so. He could have lived his life feeling he had never been validated as an actor because he was never cast in a Scorsese film. He could have seen his marriage as settling since it wasn’t the same as achieving his initial life dream, but he didn’t. The point that I’m trying to make is that everything, and I absolutely mean everything, is based on perception and we control/choose our perspective based on the story we choose to associate with the events that take place in our lives. Perception is the meaning that we give to a set of events. The events themselves are neutral until we assign a meaning to them. And it is from that meaning that we create our entire life perspective.

To me, that choice is taking personal responsibility for our lives. It’s extremely empowering and depending on how you’ve painted your own life story, it can be quite scary. Sometimes it appears easier to hide behind our stories, never recognizing that we’ve unconsciously placed ourselves as the victim in our own story. Today’s video blog is about realizing you have a choice in painting the story of your life, so why not take responsibility for the choice and paint the story that you want?

Hot Tip:  You might want to let the video load completely before attempting to watch it so that the constant buffering doesn’t drive you nuts!

Taking Personal Responsibility

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