What If You Knew You Could Not Fail?

The next time you find yourself relaxing on the couch, having popped some corn and about to watch the “Sopranos”, instead, pose this $1,000,000 lottery question to yourself and see what flows. What would you do if you knew you could not fail? Would you work, not work? If you knew anything you touched or did held the possibility for success - whatever that is, what would you do? If there were no time constraints, no obstacles, no self-doubt, what would you do?

Some of you are already saying, “What’s the point of this!?” “This will never be real!” “Who’s got a million dollars??Not me!” Well, the whole point is to have you dream…to take a ride. To get to the heart of what it is that you truly value. To uncover the elements in life that is of importance to you. This “story” that you create gives you clues as to the elements you can furnish your “real life” with. More so, you may find that some of the things you dream on, cost nothing. For example, a walk in the park, time spent with friends, time spent with family, flowers in your home, eating well, exercise, a new home etc. Let me not put words in your mouth. Go on, and dream!

In order to find out what it is you really want in your life, self-exploration is the first part of that process. Questions like $1,000,000 question help you to begin to design the life, the career, and/or the relationship you desire. Pose this question to any aspect of your life, removing all boundaries, all “shoulds” and “should nots” and see what you come up with. You will be sure to unravel hidden strengths, talents, gifts and values. Values you can use in creating a game plan for your life Another important point is to be as specific as you can. Record all colors, the time of day, smells and people in your story. Be very specific. Dig deep.

It’s truly possible to live the life you dream - the life you want. But first you have to know what it is you want. Answering self-exploration questions like this is the beginning.

Clearly, this is not simple. For many of us this is a challenge, especially if we rarely give ourselves permission to dream. Pestering voices corner us. But if you allow yourself to take on this type of questioning, you will find that your personal options for living are vast and varied. With all our world of choices and unlimited possibilities, let’s begin with the dream…

I dream that I often travel the world and bring back amazing and beautiful art to share with people. And everyone is pleased with me and they say, “ooh!” “aah!” and “gimme some of that!” about my findings. Hmm…What does that say about me?

About The Author

Sandra A. Daley is the president of Daley Formulas?solutions for creative living, a life and career coaching company that believes that everyone is entitled to a full and prosperous life. She works with artists, entrepreneurs and people who are in transition in their lives and careers. Sandra facilitates several workshops: “Defining The Work You Love: A Career Fulfillment Workshop”, “So You Wanna Be In Show Business: A Workshop On How To Break Into Acting” and “Leadership and Creativity”. She also publishes an inspiring and resourceful, monthly newsletter called “Daley Formulas?solutions for creative living”. To learn more visit: www.daleyformulas.com or send an Email to info@daleyformulas.com.

Depressed Because Your Life Sucks?

Great article over at Violent Acres… challenges the way society thinks the cure to depression is just a little prozac.

My Great Grandmother was born in 1904 and immigrated to America with her family shortly thereafter. When she turned 12, her Mother forced her to drop out of school and work twelve hours a day in a tire factory so the family could pay the bills. When she was 17, her family pressured her to marry a man she didn’t love to gain financial security. Shortly after she said ‘I do,’ my Grandmother came to her senses and demanded a divorce.

Back then, divorce wasn’t as common as it is now and her demand caused a lot of controversy in her community. No one could understand why a woman wouldn’t want to be with the nice man who wanted to provide for her and many dubbed her a strumpet. But my Grandmother stood her ground and dissolved her marriage. However, upon returning home, her family had decided in her absence that she must be crazy. Literally. They had her forcibly committed to a mental institution.

Mental institutions were not the nice, clean, white places of healing they are today. Instead, they were filled to the brim with incompetent doctors who made snap diagnoses and ordered experimental shock treatments. Patients often spent hours strapped down in beds and force fed drugs that made them feel even worse. Some of them were raped, beaten, or otherwise abused. After all, they were crazy. Who would believe them?

My Grandmother told me all of this for the first time shortly after my 19th birthday. I had recently found out something pretty shocking about my past (Another story for another day, don’t worry) and I went to her for confirmation because there wasn’t anyone else I could trust to tell me the truth. She did confirm what I had learned and apologized for her part in it. Destroyed by the news, I confessed to her that I was thinking about going into therapy. My desire for a Doctor to ‘fix me’ is what inspired her story.

When she was finished, she said to me, “All the time I spent in that hellhole, people were constantly trying to convince me that I felt sad because there was something wrong with my brain. But do you want to know what I really learned?”

I leaned in closer, absolutely absorbed by the image of my tough Grandmother who raised her children, nurtured her (Second!) marriage, and was one of the first successful business women of her era spending time in a mental institution. “What Grandma?” I breathlessly inquired.

“I learned that I wasn’t sad because there was something wrong with my brain. I learned that I was sad because my life sucked.”

Initially, I laughed because it was funny to hear my old Grandma use the word ‘sucked’ in a sentence. But after that, I worriedly asked, “Are you saying I shouldn’t seek therapy?”

“No,” she replied, “I’m not saying that at all. What I am saying is that you should be wary of the Doctor who tells you a pill is a fix for your broken mind. The way I see it, you have a lot of reasons to be sad right now. So if that’s what you’re feeling, that seems about right to me.”

Now that we live in a culture where mental illness is so incredibly popular that you’re almost considered abnormal if you don’t have one, her words ring even truer. A lot of people nowadays seem to think that any sign of anxiousness or sadness signifies a broken brain, and immediately upon discovery will run with their asses on fire for their prescription of Happy Pills.

“My brain doesn’t produce enough serotonin!” they chirp. “This is why I’m always sad!”

It’s always the serotonin. It’s never the lousy job or the loveless marriage or the helplessness one feels when they finally realized they’ve been pressured into living a life they would have never chosen for themselves. No, it’s never that. It’s always a broken brain.

Now please don’t misunderstand me here. I am not trying to lambaste psychiatric treatment nor am I denying the existence of real, valid, medically proven mental disabilities. I realize there are people out there who downright suffer from hallucinations, irrational fears and compulsions, and crippling life debilitating illnesses that wreak havoc on their lives if left untreated. I do not fault these people for taking the drugs they need to feel better. In fact, I applaud them.

It’s the people who try to eradicate every hint of sadness and anger out of human existence I fault. Negative emotions are a vital part of the human condition and it isn’t until we experience them that we truly appreciate the positive opposites. In other words, one needs sadness in their lives to be able to fully recognize happiness when they come across it. Without anger, we can never appreciate the calm; our hatred and indifference emphasis our love. To deprive oneself of any emotion characteristic to our nature is to deny the very things that make us human. Our minds work the way they do for a reason. They are not broken.

Modern day Americans are often trapped in lousy, disappointing, soul crushing careers. If they are not divorced already, their marriages are on the rocks. They live far outside of their means, rack up thousands of dollars of debt, and then they work overtime to pay for the toys they never have time to play with. They dedicate their lives to pleasing ungrateful children who won’t amount to much more than they did. Hours of their downtime is spent in front of the television, switching from reality show to reality show, because it is easier to watch other people live life than it is to live their own. In a rare moment of creativity, they might write a secret out on a postcard and send it to a website because they don’t have a single person in real life that they trust enough to share their fears with. They feel all of this on top of the usual human maladies of sickness, death and grief.

To be perfectly honest, I would think it was weirder if most people didn’t entertain thoughts of suicide.

The majority of people aren’t sad because there is something wrong with their brain. They are sad because their lives suck. But rather than admit that to themselves, they run to the Doctor and beg for a diagnosis that alleviates their personal responsibility in this regard. After all, if a man in a white coat tells you’re broken, you never have to worry about fixing yourself. The sad reality is that they’ll spend the rest of their lives switching medications and wondering why nothing they take works and cures their disease. Never once do they consider that the disease is their life and true healing will come once attempts are made to repair it.

If you are sad right now, I want you to consider that perhaps there is nothing wrong with you. Perhaps you are seeing things the way they ought to be seen. Maybe there is just something wrong with the world right now? Instead of popping some pills in the hopes that they will put us on a perpetual even keel, maybe instead we should figure out what is wrong with our society…and fix it.

Trust Yourself To Live The Life You Want

TRUST yourself.

When you don’t fully trust yourself, feelings of depression wash over you, you start losing hope in yourself and worry, fear and anxiety begin making a permanent home in your mind. The absence of trust, more than any other virtue, has doomed many good men and women to failure.

TRUST the Moment

Your past is nothing but a memory and your future has not yet arrived. If you live your life, fully present, in the here and now, one moment at a time, you will literally become healthy, wealthy and wise.

TRUST your dreams

Dare to dream big and allow the critics in your life to live quietly with their little dreams of lack and limitation. Do not argue with people who tell you that it is not possible for you to achieve the dreams you desire. The moment you argue with people about the soundness of your dreams, you have been defeated.

TRUST your Will

Trust your free will, your power to choose. Use it to create a heaven on earth for yourself. Use your will to inspire others less fortunate than yourself. Trust your will to see you through the tough times and when you do, you will experience the strength of God’s will there too.

Trust Your Thoughts

TRUST your best thoughts, your highest thoughts, the thoughts that inspire you the most.

It is your thoughts and actions, alone, that have created the circumstances you have in your life today. If you do not like your current set of circumstances, do not mourn over them endlessly and do not blame yourself or others for what you have today. What you have today is a result of your thoughts and actions of yesterday. What you will have tomorrow will be a result of your thoughts and actions of today.

TRUST only in those thoughts that empower you and leave the rest alone.

Choose to think about and act only on those thoughts that strengthen rather than weaken you. Choose to think about thoughts that make you feel good about yourself always and in all ways. Choose thoughts and actions that lift you up and inspire you. Choose thoughts and actions that propel you towards your dreams. Choose your friends carefully. A friend who shares your vision of living a happy, content and prosperous life will do more to help you make your dreams comes true than a thousand friends who do not.

TRUST that you Have a BOLD, DARING AND COURAGEOUS Side

Trust that, beginning right now, you can create a “too good to be true” life for yourself rather than living a life that, sadly, for many people is “too bad to be true”.

Copyrighted 2006 Frederick Zappone

Letting Go

“Its just letting go,” the wise one said.

“If you want to be at peace, if you want to feel the love of God in your heart, if you want to savor the present moment, then just let go of all the constraints you have put upon yourself.”

“That’s all there is to it.”

“Simple, isn’t it?”

But oh how difficult it is….

Years of personal experience,
combined with centuries of cultural learning,
have taught us the importance of holding on.

We hold on to our desires
We hold on to what we think we need.
We hold on to what promises us happiness.

We hold on to our possessions.
We hold on to our image of who we are
We hold on to our ideas of what is right.

We hold on to our theories.
We hold on to our beliefs.
We hold on to our attitudes.
We hold on to our judgments.

We hold on to the past
We hold on to the future.

We hold on to our grievances.
We hold on to our fears.
We hold on to our loves
We hold on to our lovers.

We hold on to money.

We hold on to our thoughts.
We hold on to our illusions.

We hold on to our gods.
We hold on to our bodies.
We hold on to our lives

But why do we hold on?….

Maybe we believe that our safety lies in holding on,
That losing our grip could spell disaster,
Or we may believe that holding on is the way to salvation.

But do we really know it is safer to hold on?
Would letting go really be so bad?
Do we really gain from holding on?

It is the role of the teacher to show us that such security is illusory.
That holding on only holds us back.
That our salvation lies in letting go.

Our holding on is a constraint we’ve placed upon ourselves.
It is an attitude, a way of thinking.
And our thinking - unlike the weather or the movements of the planets - is one thing we have complete control over.

The task of the teacher is to show us that we can change our minds, and that it is safe to do so.

Parable of the Rope…

We are like a person holding on to a piece of rope.

He holds on for dear life, knowing that if he were to let go he would fall to his death. His parents, his teachers, and many others have told him this is so; and when he looks around he can see everyone else doing the same.

Nothing would induce him to let go.

Along comes a wise person. She knows that holding on is unnecessary, that the security it offers is illusory, and only holds you where you are. So she looks for a way to dispel his illusions and help him to be free.

She talks of real security, of deeper joy, of true happiness, of peace of mind. She tells him that he can taste this if he will just release one finger from the rope.

“One finger,” thinks the man; “that”s not too much to risk for a taste of bliss.” So he agrees to take this first initiation.

And he does taste greater joy, happiness, and peace of mind.

But not enough to bring lasting fulfillment.

“Even greater joy, happiness and peace can be yours,” she tells him, “if you will just release a second finger.”

“This,” he tells himself, “is going to be more difficult. Can I do it? Will it be safe? Do I have the courage?” He hesitates, then, flexing his finger, feels how it would be to let go a little more . . . and takes the risk.

He is relieved to find he does not fall; instead he discovers greater happiness and inner peace.

But could more be possible?

“Trust me,” she says. “Have I failed you so far? I know your fears, I know what your mind is telling you — that this is crazy, that it goes against everything you have ever learnt — but please, trust me. Look at me, am I not free? I promise you will be safe, and you will know even greater happiness and contentment.”

“Do I really want happiness and inner peace so much,” he wonders, “that I am prepared to risk all that I hold dear? In principle, yes; but can I be sure that I will be safe, that I will not fall?” With a little coaxing he begins to look at his fears, to consider their basis, and to explore what it is he really wants. Slowly he feels his fingers soften and relax. He knows he can do it. And he knows he must do it. It is only a matter of time until he releases his grip.

And as he does an even greater sense of peace flows through him.

He is now hanging by one finger. Reason tells him he should have fallen a finger or two ago, but he hasn”t. “Is there something wrong with holding on itself?” he asks himself. “Have I been wrong all the time?”

“This one is up to you,” she says. “I can help you no further. Just remember that all your fears are groundless.”

Trusting his quiet inner voice, he gradually releases the last finger.

And nothing happens.

He stays exactly where he is.

Then he realizes why. He has been standing on the ground all along.

And as he looks at the ground, knowing he need never hold on again, he finds true peace of mind.

Source: http://www.peterrussell.com/

The Last Lecture

Randy Pausch, a virtual reality pioneer, human-computer interaction researcher, and cancer patient, reprises his inspirational “Last Lecture” on the Oprah Show (Oct 22, 2007). This short video is chock full of wonderful advice on how to live a grateful life… for example, “Bricks walls are not there to keep us out, but rather allow us to learn just how bad we want something.”

Encouragement Goes A Long Way

Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room. One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs. His bed was next to the room’s only window. The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back. The men talked for hours on end. They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their involvement in the military service, where they had been on vacation.

Every afternoon when the man in the bed by the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the thing he could see outside the window. The man in the other bed began to live for those one-hour periods where his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the activity and color of the world outside. The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake. Ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats.Young lovers walked arm in arm amidst flowers of every color and a fine view of the city skyline could be seen in the distance. As the man by the window described all this in exquisite detail, the man on the other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine the picturesque scene.

One warm afternoon the man by the window described a parade passing by. Although the other man couldn’t hear the band - he could see it. In his mind’s eye as the gentleman by the window portrayed it with descriptive words. Days and weeks passed. One morning, the day nurse arrived to bring water for their baths only to find the lifeless body of the man by the window, who had died peacefully in his sleep. She was saddened and called the hospital attendants to take the body away. As soon as it seemed appropriate, the other man asked if he could be moved next to the window. The nurse was happy to make the switch, and after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone.

Slowly, painfully, he propped himself up on one elbow to take his first look at the real world outside. He strained to slowly turn to look out the window beside the bed. It faced a blank wall. The man asked the nurse what could have compelled his deceased roommate who had described such wonderful things outside this window.

The nurse responded that the man was blind and could not even see the wall. She said, “Perhaps he just wanted to encourage you.”

10 Simple Ways To Make Your Life Easier

“Our life is frittered away by detail… Simplify, simplify, simplify! … Simplicity of life and elevation of purpose.”

- Henry David Thoreau

It is a good question whether modern society has led to an improvement in living standards. We have an unprecedented level of material prosperity, but often it seems to come at the price of increased complexity and stress. However, there is no reason why we cannot have the best of both worlds; taking advantage of modern technology and enjoying the simplicity of living in the present moment. If you feel life is too stressful and complicated these are some tips to simplify your life.

Give Priority to the essentials of life.

Sometimes we can allow small problems to escalate and dominate our lives. If we get overcharged a few cents, it is irritating, but don’t allow it to ruin your day. There will always be small issues to irritate us, the secret is to be able to give them the importance they deserve. The essentials of life is cultivating happiness; if small unimportant things overwhelm us, then we will not be able to enjoy life as it should be.

Don’t Worry about Pleasing everyone.

If you try to please everyone, you will undoubtedly fail, plus you will not make yourself happy. Consider what is the right thing to do, rather than what other people expect you to do. Don’t feel guilty if people are disappointed with how you act and choose. It is not your responsibility to please their unreasonable expectations.

Happiness is not Found is fulfilling All Desires

It is a useful exercise, to write down how many desires and wishes that we have. If we are honest, we will find the list to be very long. Often it involves a hope that other people will behave in a certain way. Alternatively, we think that if we can gain greater financial security all our problems will dissipate. However, fulfilling all our desires is not the way to gain happiness. The fulfillment of all desires is inevitably impossible and creates a sense of frustration because we cannot get what we want. Instead, minimise the list of desires and be content with what we have.

Don’t listen to the fears of the mind.

It is our own mind that can create fears and complications in life. If we give importance to these self generated problems, life will feel complex and troublesome. Furthermore, most worries are based on false fears; simplify your life by suspending disbelief and anxiety. Live in the present moment, leave the problems of tomorrow for another day.

Detachment

Life can feel like a never ending soap opera, there are always problems for us to deal with. Detachment doesn’t mean aloofness, detachment means we will offer service to others without expectation of reward or expectation of a certain outcome. Don’t feel personally responsible for other people’s lives. Do what you think is the right thing, but be detached from the outcome.

Avoid Unnecessary Conflict

If we value harmony in relationships, life will be immeasurably simpler. The nature of relationships with others, is that there is always the potential for getting involved in minor personality conflicts. Instead of arguing with others, we need to be detached and willing to be tolerant of others. If you feel disharmony with others, just try looking for some of their good qualities. If we can avoid conflict and argument life will be more simple.

” In the spiritual life, the higher we go, the deeper we go; the farther we go, the more we will see that Reality is only the song of simplicity and nothing else. The entire cosmic Game is extremely simple, but we look at it from a different angle in an obscure way. That is why we feel it is very complex, but everything is simple.”

- Sri Chinmoy

Clear Out the Clutter

Don’t keep things just for the sake of it. To simplify life, it is important to simplify our material possessions. Keep what you need and throw away what you never use. Clearing out the clutter means you can be more organised and find things you need quicker, but another advantage is that if you have a simple and clutter free living environment it helps create an inner calmness. If we have mess in our living environment it is hard to appreciate the benefits of simple lifestyle.

Don’t Live in the Past

Life is simple if we can just live in the present moment. There are many reasons to regret the past and wish things had been done differently. But, what is done cannot be undone, we need to forget the mistakes of the past and consider what we can do now.

Quieten the Mind

To simplify our life, it is vital to be able to control our unruly thoughts and give them less prominence. Meditation is the most effective way to quieten the mind. Many thoughts that come through our mind are unnecessary and often useless. To have a clear and calm mind gives us a tremendous benefit. See: How To Control Your Thoughts

Don’t Let Technology Control You.

If you are at the beck and call of technology, you will always be hectic. We managed to live quite effectively before the invention of mobile phones and emails. By all means use them, but give them their proper place. Don’t be constantly bombarded by their demands.

Source: Sri Chinmoy

The Art of Not Being Offended

There is an ancient and well-kept secret to happiness which the Great Ones have known for centuries. They rarely talk about it, but they use it all the time, and it is fundamental to good mental health. This secret is called The Fine Art of Not Being Offended. In order to truly be a master of this art, one must be able to see that every statement, action and reaction of another human being is the sum result of their total life experience to date. In other words, the majority of people in our world say and do what they do from their own set of fears, conclusions, defenses and attempts to survive. Most of it, even when aimed directly at us, has nothing to do with us. Usually, it has more to do with all the other times, and in particular the first few times, that this person experienced a similar situation, usually when they were young.

Yes, this is psycho dynamic. But let’s face it, we live in a world where psycho dynamics are what make the world go around. An individual who wishes to live successfully in the world as a spiritual person really needs to understand that psychology is as spiritual as prayer. In fact, the word psychology literally means the study of the soul.

All of that said, almost nothing is personal. Even with our closest loved ones, our beloved partners, our children and our friends. We are all swimming in the projections and filters of each other’s life experiences and often we are just the stand-ins, the chess pieces of life to which our loved ones have their own built-in reactions. This is not to dehumanize life or take away the intimacy from our relationships, but mainly for us to know that almost every time we get offended, we are actually just in a misunderstanding. A true embodiment of this idea actually allows for more intimacy and less suffering throughout all of our relationships. When we know that we are just the one who happens to be standing in the right place at the right psycho dynamic time for someone to say or do what they are doing—we don’t have to take life personally. If it weren’t us, it would likely be someone else.

This frees us to be a little more detached from the reactions of people around us. How often do we react to a statement of another by being offended rather than seeing that the other might actually be hurting? In fact, every time we get offended, it is actually an opportunity to extend kindness to one who may be suffering—even if they themselves do not appear that way on the surface. All anger, all acting out, all harshness, all criticism, is in truth a form of suffering. When we provide no Velcro for it to stick, something changes in the world. We do not even have to say a thing. In fact, it is usually better not to say a thing. People who are suffering on the inside, but not showing it on the outside, are usually not keen on someone pointing out to them that they are suffering. We do not have to be our loved one’s therapist. We need only understand the situation and move on. In the least, we ourselves experience less suffering and at best, we have a chance to make the world a better place.

This is also not to be confused with allowing ourselves to be hurt, neglected or taken advantage of. True compassion does not allow harm to ourselves either. But when we know that nothing is personal, a magical thing happens. Many of the seeming abusers of the world start to leave our lives. Once we are conscious, so-called abuse can only happen if we believe what the other is saying. When we know nothing is personal, we also do not end up feeling abused. We can say, “Thank you for sharing,” and move on. We are not hooked by what another does or says, since we know it is not about us. When we know that our inherent worth is not determined by what another says, does or believes, we can take the world a little less seriously. And if necessary, we can just walk away without creating more misery for ourselves or having to convince the other person that we are good and worthy people.

The great challenge of our world is to live a life of contentment, regardless of what other people do, say, think or believe. The fine art of not being offended is one of the many skills for being a practical mystic. Though it may take a lifetime of practice, it is truly one of the best kept secrets for living a happy life.

Dr. Jodi Prinzivalli conducts workshops in the Chicago area regularly. She is the author of the recently released book How To Be A Mystic In A Traffic Jam. You can learn about her work by visiting her website at www.energeticpsychology.com.