Friday, October 22, 2010
Degree or No Degree? That is the Question.
My good friend Steve Maher brought up a great point in conversation. He suggested that I get a degree in Psychology so that more doors will open in the field that I enjoy, which is empowering others to move beyond struggle so they may begin to live a wonderful life. I agree with him completely, doors would open up if a degree were in my hands; the value in a degree is immeasurable. But it inspired this question in me which I would like to pose to all of you. Do you feel that you need a degree to begin living your life’s passions? Should you wait for that degree to begin doing what you love?
To be clear, Steve does believe that you should begin living your dreams regardless if you have a degree or not. He simply feels that a degree may make that vocation easier to facilitate. This is quite true. A degree is not an easy thing to acquire though and the difficulty in getting one often scares people away from doing what they love. I am not saying that because a thing is difficult we should fear it, but it is often the case. The truth is, if you are compelled to do something it should be done by you whether it is challenging or not. But also for the thing to be done we should not wait for a piece of paper to permit our doing it. We can begin now by first imagining doing it, buying and reading as many books on the subject as we can, visiting and meeting people and going places where the thing we love is being done, and actually doing it if we feel ready. All the while we could be attending school if what we want requires it, but nothing of value requires waiting.
I love writing! No I am not an English major, nor do I have a degree in English. Does this mean I don’t have the right to spill my guts on paper, or in my blogs? Blogs would never have been created if experts only were allowed to put pen to page. We can do whatever we want even if what we want doesn’t make logical sense to the examiners and critics out there waiting to judge. How much happiness can there be in life if everything you look at must meet a certain standard in order to be enjoyed?
A piece of paper can never define the worth of a person. In three seconds a match can turn it into smoke and dust. It is from within that all the goodness comes. Begin being who you are now! This does not mean you shouldn’t go for the paper, but waiting for it to begin fueling the passion inside of you will extinguish that flame.
I would enjoy your thoughts on this: Do you feel that you need a degree to begin living your life’s passions? Should you wait for that degree to begin doing what you love? You know my opinion, I would love to hear yours!
To be clear, Steve does believe that you should begin living your dreams regardless if you have a degree or not. He simply feels that a degree may make that vocation easier to facilitate. This is quite true. A degree is not an easy thing to acquire though and the difficulty in getting one often scares people away from doing what they love. I am not saying that because a thing is difficult we should fear it, but it is often the case. The truth is, if you are compelled to do something it should be done by you whether it is challenging or not. But also for the thing to be done we should not wait for a piece of paper to permit our doing it. We can begin now by first imagining doing it, buying and reading as many books on the subject as we can, visiting and meeting people and going places where the thing we love is being done, and actually doing it if we feel ready. All the while we could be attending school if what we want requires it, but nothing of value requires waiting.
I love writing! No I am not an English major, nor do I have a degree in English. Does this mean I don’t have the right to spill my guts on paper, or in my blogs? Blogs would never have been created if experts only were allowed to put pen to page. We can do whatever we want even if what we want doesn’t make logical sense to the examiners and critics out there waiting to judge. How much happiness can there be in life if everything you look at must meet a certain standard in order to be enjoyed?
A piece of paper can never define the worth of a person. In three seconds a match can turn it into smoke and dust. It is from within that all the goodness comes. Begin being who you are now! This does not mean you shouldn’t go for the paper, but waiting for it to begin fueling the passion inside of you will extinguish that flame.
I would enjoy your thoughts on this: Do you feel that you need a degree to begin living your life’s passions? Should you wait for that degree to begin doing what you love? You know my opinion, I would love to hear yours!
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Field of Joy
Within everything that is wonderful is some element of struggle and suffering. Even a grand and beautiful tree is rooted in soil composed of fallen trees and leaves, deceased animals and dead plants. Nothing that ever arose to become great in its expression of life has eluded pain and suffering. Knowing this, it is clear that it is how we see our suffering that defines how we allow it to shape our lives. That it is viewed as something to be avoided is where our mistakes come. In our effort to avoid our struggles, all we find are more struggles.
We have not within us always the capacity to understand the turns and twists of the great plan for our lives. Only when we have the courage to surrender and trust that what is moving through our life is part of a Divine plan do we then lesson our resistance to it and begin to align with inner truth. Our question should not be, “Why do I struggle”, but “Where am I being led”. And that question can be asked with an open curiousness and faith.
Growth reveals itself on the other side of difficulty. Being able to truly appreciate light only comes because we’ve experienced darkness. It is our will and love for life powering us through disharmony that becomes more robust and solid like the trunk of the same tree that roots itself in the soil of decomposition. Struggle is a test of our will and love for living. The more tests we pass, the less we face in the future as we graduate into the field of joy.
We have not within us always the capacity to understand the turns and twists of the great plan for our lives. Only when we have the courage to surrender and trust that what is moving through our life is part of a Divine plan do we then lesson our resistance to it and begin to align with inner truth. Our question should not be, “Why do I struggle”, but “Where am I being led”. And that question can be asked with an open curiousness and faith.
Growth reveals itself on the other side of difficulty. Being able to truly appreciate light only comes because we’ve experienced darkness. It is our will and love for life powering us through disharmony that becomes more robust and solid like the trunk of the same tree that roots itself in the soil of decomposition. Struggle is a test of our will and love for living. The more tests we pass, the less we face in the future as we graduate into the field of joy.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Fear vs Love, The Follow Up Video
I’ll be doing the follow up video to Fear vs. Love today. In it I will discuss ways in which we can begin to remove ourselves for the entrapments of fear, and begin to walk gracefully through the field of life’s abundance.
As I have said and have written about in the past, we deserve to live with love and joy in our hearts. If we could understand that the manifestation of disorder in our lives is created by ourselves, then very easily with the same effort that is put into the building of our present life, we can learn to build the life that harmonizes with our inner beauty. We can craft our life’s story the way it was meant to be crafted; with love, with delight and with wonder. I look forward to sharing this with you!
As I have said and have written about in the past, we deserve to live with love and joy in our hearts. If we could understand that the manifestation of disorder in our lives is created by ourselves, then very easily with the same effort that is put into the building of our present life, we can learn to build the life that harmonizes with our inner beauty. We can craft our life’s story the way it was meant to be crafted; with love, with delight and with wonder. I look forward to sharing this with you!
Monday, October 11, 2010
You Gotta Be Able To Laugh
A very wise and great friend of mine said to me, “You’ve gotta be able to laugh at yourself”. That could not be more accurate for me and for many others who, like me, take themselves and their lives too seriously. Now of course I would consider myself a person who is capable of enjoying the humor in life. I have certainly been known to break out into gut wiggling laughter, but it is quite true that I am often guilty of taking life too seriously.
At times if another person and I have opposing views, and from within me rumbles up the molten rock of seriousness, it may be quite helpful if I could cool that heat by laughing. Because from the barrel of laughter comes a tremendous degree of openness and love. For those of us who press ourselves up against the force of life, it may be quite a splendid thing to smile at the many bloopers that accompany being human.
It is reasonable to say that laughter in times of struggle and difficulty could have a transformational effect. Laughing is so wonderfully liberating and intoxicating. Sharing moments of laughter with friends and family creates life lasting bonds and delightful moments stored in the banks of our memory. It has tremendous healing powers and colors the atmosphere with positivity. So in the future, if someone is angry or irritated with me, I will try to make them laugh. If I find myself hardening my views and becoming irritated and angry, I will look for the humor in the humanness. Because it is wonderful to remember the great importance of lightening up and laughing.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Wonderful Life?
Would you believe that we were born to live a wonderful life? If you don’t, more than likely your life is much less than wonderful. The circumstances in which you find yourself are woven beautifully together, designed in a way that is meant to guide you toward the joy and the bliss that you are. It is only in our inability to see this beauty that we find around each corner something much less than the joy we deserve, yet we have experienced enough happiness so far that we continue to seek more of it.
How do you make happiness a permanent thing? How do you create an ever increasing flow of peace in your life? By realizing that you are nothing else but love. You were conceived out of love regardless of the environment you were born into. Love is the gravity of all things and everything points toward the deep well of bliss that it is. Ignorance of this truth is the root of dysfunction and the fragmentation of pure delight. Click here to learn more….
How do you make happiness a permanent thing? How do you create an ever increasing flow of peace in your life? By realizing that you are nothing else but love. You were conceived out of love regardless of the environment you were born into. Love is the gravity of all things and everything points toward the deep well of bliss that it is. Ignorance of this truth is the root of dysfunction and the fragmentation of pure delight. Click here to learn more….
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Unconsciousness
If I am afraid, it is usually the result of concerns that I have about something done in the past, a mistake for example, or I am worried about an event that is to come in the future like paying a bill or meeting a deadline. Another common concern I often experience is excessive thinking about how another person perceives me, what opinion they hold in regards to me.
What I realize is that all of these things are irrelevant to what is happening in the moment. In the present there is no past or future, and certainly I can never think anyone else’s thoughts but my own. Also, in the present worry and fears do not exist so fear can only be a product of unconsciousness; when we are living consciously we are soundly rooted in the present moment.
The fear that I am referring to, the same fear I wrote about in my previous blog, is the fear that we mill over in our minds and that manifests as stress in our lives and in our bodies blocking our otherwise smooth flowing of energy. I am not referring to the natural fight or flight instinct that happens at times of emergency. That fear is presence because there is no time to think or worry, there is only time to react and move. It is as pure as the present moment because it is an element of pure consciousness. At those times we are amazingly uncluttered.
To be conscious is to be unafraid, to be joyful, to be happy. To be conscious is to know that what we deserve in life is the opposite of fear filled lack. We deserve to live abundantly!
What I realize is that all of these things are irrelevant to what is happening in the moment. In the present there is no past or future, and certainly I can never think anyone else’s thoughts but my own. Also, in the present worry and fears do not exist so fear can only be a product of unconsciousness; when we are living consciously we are soundly rooted in the present moment.
The fear that I am referring to, the same fear I wrote about in my previous blog, is the fear that we mill over in our minds and that manifests as stress in our lives and in our bodies blocking our otherwise smooth flowing of energy. I am not referring to the natural fight or flight instinct that happens at times of emergency. That fear is presence because there is no time to think or worry, there is only time to react and move. It is as pure as the present moment because it is an element of pure consciousness. At those times we are amazingly uncluttered.
To be conscious is to be unafraid, to be joyful, to be happy. To be conscious is to know that what we deserve in life is the opposite of fear filled lack. We deserve to live abundantly!
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Fear
What a strange thing fear is. It can create disease in our bodies, bring imbalance to our ability to go confidently through life, can destroy relationships, and stiffen our ability to roam freely. But what is wonderful to know is that fear can only arrive in your life when you are living unconsciously. The space that surrounds awareness is filled with love only; our true nature is love. It is what we were born from; it is what we are now at this moment.
It is helpful to think of fear as the voice of a stern mother asking us not to touch or do the things that are unhealthy or unsafe. Fear is born from our unconsciousness and is the sharp voice of our mother, the love that we are, warning us and asking that we return to the present moment. Only when we have removed ourselves from our truth by choosing to travel through life recklessly do we begin to shiver in the cold dark corners of fearfulness.
So to listen to your fear and when it is felt remember to return to the love that you are is all that is needed. Say to yourself, "There is no fear, there is only love." Look deeply into your heart with a fresh smooth inhalation, and remove the black smoke that surrounds it with a peaceful exhalation. There is nothing for you to do but return to love, place your focus on it only. If fear is only unconsciousness, a lack of knowing that we are love, then all that we need to do to remove fear is return to the present moment by becoming aware of our breath and by reminding ourselves that our true nature is love and only love.
It is helpful to think of fear as the voice of a stern mother asking us not to touch or do the things that are unhealthy or unsafe. Fear is born from our unconsciousness and is the sharp voice of our mother, the love that we are, warning us and asking that we return to the present moment. Only when we have removed ourselves from our truth by choosing to travel through life recklessly do we begin to shiver in the cold dark corners of fearfulness.
So to listen to your fear and when it is felt remember to return to the love that you are is all that is needed. Say to yourself, "There is no fear, there is only love." Look deeply into your heart with a fresh smooth inhalation, and remove the black smoke that surrounds it with a peaceful exhalation. There is nothing for you to do but return to love, place your focus on it only. If fear is only unconsciousness, a lack of knowing that we are love, then all that we need to do to remove fear is return to the present moment by becoming aware of our breath and by reminding ourselves that our true nature is love and only love.
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