Take Your Passion to Action

Gary Vaynerchuk's TED talk on Building Personal Brand Within the Social Media Landscape dates back to September 2008 but is still 100% relevant to today's ways.

Taking that plunge into some unknown waters can be scary, but in the end when you pop your head back out of that water - you've just realized that that was the best adrenaline rush ever!! ...You just did something you wanted to do and to boot you're doing something most people just keep talking about.

Sitting on the couch watching TV at night isn't going to make you richer.

Take what you know and love to do, love to talk about, know even about - now - (you don't need to be a rocket scientist about this subject) and run with it!
You can go to the library and read endless amount of books about the subject but if you never take that knowledge and just go - you'll never go...
The best lessons are those that didn't work, AND, of course, obviously those that did!
But how you gonna know unless you try?

Choosing to Live in Love

I'm a very strong-willed woman. I like a good challenge and appreciate efforts being given or shared between individuals. I've lived my fair share of struggles and have learned that not everything in life is "fair" - however now with this new outlook on life, I'm also seeing that some of these struggles were needed to make me who I am today. Also looking back, I might have even incurred some of my "situations" due to where my focus was at that time in my life.

Focus on debt. Result: Get more debt. Lack of finances. Situations where I'm left without money.
Focus on lack of trust. Result: Get lied to. Situations arise where I find my disappointed in someone / something. Frustration and angry towards 'everyone' else cause in my mind, they're all incompetent. 
Focus on struggles. Result: Be exposed to more struggles; bring on drama; get magnetized to troublesome situations (wrong place, wrong time).

Shifting Perspectives

So my new way of 'being' is to shift my focus on what I want vs. what I don't want.
This isn't easy. I know I shouldn't say 'that' since my focus then makes 'this' hard.
This new way of "being" is, just that - it's a new way of being.

What is this way? What am I wanting to be? ...I am looking at living life with 'Love'.
?? What are you talking about, you ask? 
Why, thank you for asking...


I write this blog out of nothing. I have no guideline. Nothing to base myself on - just simply letting my mind be free and allowing this flow of writing come through me. I'm accepting my inner-self to just listen and 'go with it'. So what if it doesn't make sense, if it's really bad - well I just won't post it. ...but what happens if this inner-self actually brings out a message that makes sense? If I choose to never listen, to never allow it to come out - I'm disconnecting myself from 'me'.

When I decided to sit down today, to start writing this blog, this isn't at all the topic I had chosen. I had just had a break-down with my teenagers about putting-in their share of team work / effort for the house duties. I had just finished venting a little too loud and a little too much and was coming in with a focus of writing about the "Boat" story I always tell them. I'll have to leave that one for another time. But once I sat down and refocused, a different message came about and just started flowing through me.

Some people joke around and say that I've completely lost it and there are times where my fear-based mind believes them. This is when I have to stop and refocus. This is what I meant earlier about "this isn't easy". My internal spiritual struggles are just that - internal. At times, I just want to forget this sense of self and just go on my way and live humanly, ignoring my spiritual-connection and pursue life in ignorance. ...but having done this already, repeatedly,  I know that "Love" keeps coming back calling me to stop living this way. As much as I try to pretend its not there - this connection - is there and keeps appearing at various stages of my life making it harder and harder for me to ignore it.

Our world has a tendency to embellish itself with it's human-ways, convincing us that what it has determined as being beautiful, is beautiful; what it has set as "smart" standards is what we all need to evaluate ourselves on; what it views as acceptance, we accept and what it tells us to reject, we push away.Where do these standards come from and why are they the only ones we set to achieve? According to these human-rules if I'm born uncommon and fall under their 'ugly' category and don't meet their educational standards; I'm pretty much doomed to fail. Why would we simply accept that?

For those who don't - I continuously applaud you because you are the strength, the courage, the vision, the truth this world needs. Don't hide behind close doors just because people don't understand or fear you - come out and let them see that "Love" is perfect and that each one of us is just that... "Love". Let those who live in fear... let them run and hide behind close doors.

Let Go and Believe

For me, this new way of being continuously tugs at me and fill-me up with fear-based programming.
Why are you doing this anyways? What are you trying to prove? You're no better than anyone else - who do you think you are? What makes you think you're special? Why even bother with all this, you know it's not going to get you anywhere...

So why do I bother? Because I sincerely believe I'm worth it. I sincerely believe that God (Love) is real and that letting go of control, power, fears, etc - is truly the way of life. It is the journey; that thing that everyone keeps looking for; that feeling we're all wanting; that void we're looking at filling - all of it, it's Love.

Love

Love is acceptance, trust, appreciation, permission, kindness, confidence, honesty, forgiveness, gratefulness, the ability to give, is faith, is to believe... Love is endless.

Everywhere I turn to, when looking for support, to gain better understanding, to collect knowledge - every one at the end of these support lines of communication (counsellors, social workers, physicians, scientists, researchers, etc.) have all turned to "Love".

Numerous authors, speakers, spiritualists, countless others have all documented their experiences and formulations on how living in 'Love' can change your life, ...so what's the worst that could happen? I become a person living life with a spiritual connection, gaining inner-happiness by choosing to see things with a lens of 'Love'? Could it be any worst? ;-)



What does this really mean? What does it mean to my life? Do I have to change? Do I have rules to abide? My answer to myself is: no.

If I have faith and just believe that "Love" will take care of me - that means I have no rules. Remember rules are man-made guidelines to structure a group of people so that control and power can be maintained.

To believe in God, to believe in Love, can't and shouldn't be strenuous.

If my focus is to "serve" and I believe that "serving" is what gets me to God (Love) then my beliefs are what are guiding me and the Universe (God; Love; Karma; Source; whatever you call it) in return responds. As long as I am doing what I want out of the goodness of my heart, and don't expect anything back in return - this is living in "Love".

If making food at a restaurant fills you up with joy and you'd do it for nothing, just simply cause it brings you peace, then this is living in "Love".
If taking photos is your passion, and you'll do whatever it takes to live this life - then this is living in "Love".
If sharing with the world, on a blog, your journey to "Love", and expecting nothing in return - then this is a way of living in "Love".

Whatever it is that brings you that peace, that joy - that's your inner-self calling out to you and saying: "Just go with it and everything will fall into place. Love will take care of you."

Living in Love

Again: Love will take care of you. Wow!

...Are you crazy, Love can't pay the bills. I've got a house, two vehicles, two pre-adults graduating high school in June and another that's just starting a growth spurt (mid-teens). Are you crazy - show me the money!

This is the hard part. This is a prime example of not having that faith. And so I'm telling the Universe - You can't take care of me, I need to do this myself [my focus]. So what am I going to get in return...

Pretty deep, eh?

So that's where I'm at. I'm not saying that having faith means sitting on your favourite chair watching TV waiting for the phone to ring. I'm also not saying that you'll magically walk to the store and find a winning lottery ticket... no what I'm saying (for me) is that having faith means that opportunities will come up allowing changes to occur in your life. You must be open to these changes AND you have to be conscious enough to notice these opportunities and ... to just have faith that it'll all work out.

If your sitting down whining about how everyone else is getting everything and nothing happens to you... then what is it you are focusing on? You're focusing on lack; on greed; on wanting others to suffer because you suffer; whatever the case... just remember that focus (even if you don't want to be focusing on this) is what's going to come back to you (Karma).

It's the Law; New Thought Movement; Law of Attraction, Law of Success, the Universal Law. For years, decades, centuries, ...forever - this has been documented.

You can't change others, you can only change yourself.
You can't change anything, you can only change you - your perspective on things.
Believe that you can change whatever you want - but in the end, if you take a deeper look - you'll notice that you're the one that changed. Your views. Your beliefs. Your perspective. Your feelings.

"When the student is ready, the teach arrives"

We're so caught up in "our" own little worlds that we disconnect from our spirit, choosing to not want to be students anymore. We figure we know everything. We're smart people and we don't need to connect to wishy-washy spiritual-connection stuff.


That fluff is for those yahoos who've gone overboard. And besides if it ends-up being true then I'll just deal with it when I retire. Right now I have to take care of myself and everyone else who needs me. 

...so what happens if you don't make it to retirement? Why choose to live a life of internal misery, worries, fears, and whatnot - who are right now creating cancers, anxieties; diseases inside you.

"For people who are more concerned about being able to pay their next bill than they are with the law of attraction, it's hard to think that keeping a positive attitude will change anything. Louise says that just hearing the ideas behind the law of attraction can help a person begin to make small changes in her life. "When the student is ready, the teacher appears," she says.

Martha says she noticed the law of attraction at work in an unlikely situation—while coaching homeless heroin addicts in Phoenix. Martha says they lived on the street because they couldn't afford apartments. "Then, I found out they were spending an average of $180,000 a year on heroin," she says. When Martha asked how they got the money for their addiction, she saw a change. "They would become completely different when they were talking about the one thing they believed was necessary. And as I've worked with them, I've seen that what they believe and expect is what they get.""
The Oprah Winfrey Show - June 27, 2008: Living the Law of Attraction

Lifetime Commitment 

This is where my choice resides. I don't want to live with what ifs. I'd rather live and learn; take chances; break 'rules' living outside the norm; challenge myself with breaking habits; challenge my beliefs; and choosing to continuously be a student - a student of life. The world is ours to learn and explore. And limiting ourselves to our little safe circle of security and comfort is what's going to get you no where. This is because you choose to live in fear and you allow that fear to consume your every thought. I no longer want to live in fear - I want to live in Love.

I read the following in the book Chicken Soup for the Soul.

This life is a test.
It is only a test.
Had it been an actual life
You would have received
Further instructions on
Where to go and what to do!
[Found on a bulletin board]

How Selfish Are You?

Just read another of Steve Pavlina's blog - man does this guy know how to write! I totally connect with the majority of his viewpoints. His advice is always to direct - and should be! Thanks Steve for your continuous sharing! My personal growth has flourished since I first found you online late 2008; and was also lucky enough to have grasp some alone time to enjoy your in-dept reading of Personal Development for SMART PEOPLE in 2009. Still to this day I'm learning...

How Selfish Are You?

by Steve Pavlina (posted June 6, 2005)

Several readers have informed me they’re experiencing tremendous difficulty with the issue of selfishness vs. selflessness. Deep down they want to live lives of greater service to others (STO), but they note that their current lives are designed almost entirely around service to self (STS). This in turn often leads to feelings of guilt, but usually the guilt isn’t enough to spur action.

There are abundant belief systems which set STS and STO in conflict with each other, usually favoring one over the other.

First there’s the STO-favoring side. Serving others requires the “death of the self.” The ego is seen as something which must be transcended. In order to become enlightened, one must sacrifice one’s own needs to serve the greater good. Many societies hold people who seem to fit this model in high esteem.

On the other hand, we have the STS side. People are inherently selfish and cannot be expected to act against their own self interest. Selfishness is rooted in our biology, even encoded into our genes. We’re ultimately Pavlovian stimulus-response machines driven by pleasure and pain. Those who seem to serve the greater good only do so because on some level it gives them pleasure, or they’d feel pain if they didn’t.

I think both viewpoints are dysfunctional. They assume STS and STO are in conflict. But are they really?


Where does STS ultimately lead?

What would happen if you were to fully embrace the STS path and take it as far as you possibly could? What would be the most selfish life you could possible imagine? What’s the greatest pleasure you can think of?
Would you become like Hitler and want to conquer the world and put everyone and everything under your control? Ok, so imagine you’ve just become the supreme leader of the planet. Then what? What would you do with all that power? If you didn’t have to keep struggling to maintain it, you’d probably get bored after a while.

For many people the STS path is rooted in fear. The more money, control, and power you achieve, the more fearful you become of losing it. The pursuit of greater power is endless. Your situation is never totally secure.
But what if you could somehow master this path and achieve total, absolute security? What would you do then? What would you do if you had no fear?

Perhaps you’d want to contribute something… make some kind of difference… leave a legacy. If fear and security ceased to motivate you, then what would step in to take its place?

I think the pursuit of STS, if you think it through far enough and imagine yourself succeeding at every step, will eventually lead you to some form of STO.


Where does STO ultimately lead?

But what if you start from STO? What if you put others entirely above yourself? What if you aspire to make the greatest possible contribution you can, whatever the cost to you personally? Where will that lead you?
Imagine you succeed massively at serving others. You’ve cured every known disease, rebalanced the ecosystem, ended poverty and suffering, and maxed out everyone’s self-esteem. You’ve solved all the problems of humanity. No one even needs your help anymore.

What will you do then? Enjoy it? Work on yourself for a while? Won’t this eventually lead you back to STS?


Synergy between STS and STO

Now I’m well aware that you’re not going to be able to max out the STS or the STO path within the span of a human lifetime. There will always be more to do on either side. But this line of thinking got me curious — if maxing out one side leads you back around to the other side, then what does that mean?

To me this indicated that STS and STO both lie on the same path. When you travel to the end of one, you hit the beginning of the other. Perhaps STS and STO are far more twisted together, like a giant Mobius strip.
Biologically this made sense to me. In order for humans to survive, STS and STO must be in balance. If we became totally STS but not STO, we wouldn’t care for our young (among other problems), and we’d eventually die off. If we became totally STO but not STS, we’d fail to take care of our basic needs and would probably die from neglecting our health.

In order to be optimally STS, you must be at least partially STO. And in order to be optimally STO, you must be at least partially STS. Sometimes being selfish is the most selfless thing you can do, and vice versa.
If you want to serve the greater good, you have to serve your own needs. You have to take care of your health, your financial needs, your education, etc.

If you want to serve your own interests, you need to support the community around you which will help you succeed. At the very least you may do this financially, by buying products and services from other people.


Diagnosing congruency problems

STS and STO must remain in balance. It isn’t a matter of choosing one path over the other. You need both.
But what about situations when they’re in conflict? Certainly I don’t deny such situations exist. But rather than spending lots of time trying to figure out when to choose STS and when to choose STO, I suggest trying to work on your life path itself to bring STS and STO into greater harmony.

For example, suppose you’re in a situation where your job is almost entirely STS. You do it for the money or for other perks or for a feeling of security, but your work doesn’t serve the greater good in any meaningful way. Suppose your company manufactures junk food, the kinds of products that are only going to harm people’s health in the long run. But your company (and you) get paid to do it.

Then in your off time, you do volunteer work, spend lots of time with your family, and so on. In your personal life you try to be a lot more STO.

STS and STO are in conflict. They’re not in balance.

How many companies do you know like this? The work they do is almost entirely STS, serving the needs of the company and its investors, but then they also dabble in community service projects and slap a cutesy mission statement over the whole thing. Internally they’re driven by one set of values (mostly greed), while externally they project a different set of values (mostly service).

This is pure schizophrenia.

If you find yourself in a situation like this, you can start by getting clear about where you’re overly STS and where you’re overly STO. Where are you being driven too much by self-interest and damaging others in the process? And where are you sacrificing too much and hurting yourself?


No cheating

When many people find themselves in an unbalanced situation, they try to cheat.

They attempt to redefine STS or STO to fit their current situation. For example, a greed-driven corporation may try to come up with a cutesy mission statement that casts an STO light on its business goals. But no one buys it. It’s nothing but a whitewash and has no real power to motivate people. Most of the corporate mission statements I’ve seen from Fortune 500 companies fall into this pattern. They’re written with such fuzzy, imprecise language so as to say nothing of substance. I’d give them more credit if their mission statements began with, “Our mission is to make our investors filthy rich and to squash our competition.” I think that would be a more accurate statement of purpose than what makes it through the PR filter.

What happens to individuals who find themselves in an overly STS situation is that they try to rationalize some STO components. They try to find the good in what they do. Hey, at least I’m paying my taxes. If I don’t do this job, then someone else will. I’m just being a good provider.

Don’t lie to yourself. You know the truth.


Finding the path where STS and STO are congruent

It’s not easy to find a path where STS and STO are congruent. But it is possible. On such a path, greed and service are both pointing you in the same direction. While you’ll still need to manage minor conflicts between them, the big picture is balanced. You’ll be able to see that pursuing STS and STO will take you down the same path.

What is the greediest path you can take? I think if you answer this question deeply enough, you’ll find that it’s also a path filled with service. What is the path of greatest service? Is it not also a path marked by great pleasure?

I hit the incongruency wall as I built up my games business. Parts of my work were STS (like sales and marketing). Other parts were STO (like writing free articles and coaching other developers). But each part seemed to be separate. I’d usually either be doing STS work or STO work. I’d even try to balance my time between the two of them.

After several years of that, I began seeing that this manner of living was nuts. So I opted to define a new way of working where I could spend the majority of my time doing work that is both STS and STO.
The greediest thing I do for myself is to work on my own personal growth. Growth is my driving force, my greatest STS.

The most service oriented work I do is to help others grow. If I can give someone a perspective shift or teach them a new skill, it has the potential to change them for life. And then they may go out and use it to do more STO work.

Well, it wasn’t hard for me to imagine the kind of work where I could have my cake and eat it too. I realized that there would be tremendous synergy between working on my own growth (greed) and helping others to grow (service). The more I work on my own growth, the greater my capacity for service. And the greater my service, the more it feeds back into my own growth.

This was how I ideally imagined things working, but now that I’m about nine months down this path, I have to say that it’s working.

For example, my decision to write this blog entry is motivated both by STS and STO reasons.
On the STO side, hopefully this blog entry will benefit someone who reads it. It might have no effect, or it might help a lot of people. Also, this blog entry will help generate more traffic to this site, which will hopefully benefit even more people. And there’s tons of free content here now, so it’s very accessible to a wide audience. I have no doubt that this web site is doing people some good. Every week I get feedback to that effect. Many readers have told me about multiple shifts they’ve experienced and how dramatically their results have improved.

Then there’s the STS side. Writing this blog entry helps me clarify my own ideas. It will generate feedback that will help me see what I’ve written from other perspectives. People may poke holes in some of it. This may in turn help me to re-evaluate my own thinking, which means that I’ll grow. The ideas from this blog post may also end up in a future book, speech, or seminar, which means that people who read it today are helping me beta-test these ideas. Also, each new blog post helps generate more traffic, which means more ad clicks (immediate revenue) and more newsletter sign-ups and RSS subscribers. That means a bigger audience to buy info products down the road — books, audio programs, seminars. It also means more people who might hire me as a speaker or who might attend a seminar of mine 5-10 years from now. And that ultimately means more income, which means that new growth experiences become accessible to me. New growth experiences for me means more ideas I can share with others, which feeds back into STO.

So what I do is driven both by greed and service. To me they’re the same thing. Serving others is being greedy.


Ongoing conflict resolution

Whenever I encounter conflict between STS and STO, I look at the big picture. I try to figure out why the conflict is occurring and engineer it out of existence. It’s not easy, but I feel that the more I do this, the more harmonious my life becomes.

For example, what if some mega-corporation offered to pay me an insane amount of money to give a motivational speech to their sales staff? And suppose this corporation’s purpose is totally incongruent with my values, so by helping their salespeople to sell more, I’d be contributing to a greater problem. Maybe the company has a hideous environmental record. This seems like a conflict between STS and STO. Do I take the money and give the best speech I can? Do I take the money and give the salespeople bad advice that will do them more harm than good? Do I decline the offer?

Given my values this kind of situation is one that could very well occur (although the above example is a bit exaggerated). I have no interest in helping companies make money in a destructive manner, regardless of pay. But at the same time, I do want to help the people who work at such companies, and corporations hire enormous numbers of speakers each year, so it isn’t a market I want to write off entirely.

My decision was to focus on the kinds of speech topics that would allow me to still speak for certain corporations without compromising my values. I won’t speak on business-growth topics like sales or marketing to corporations which I’d rather not see grow. But I am open to speaking to their people about topics like living consciously, the kinds of topics that could plant the seed for change. That may seriously reduce the number of people who’d be willing to hire me as a speaker, but the extra money is not worth the damage to my integrity.

When you work on a task where STS and STO are both aligned, motivation skyrockets. Having worked like this for nine months now, I’m simply not willing to lose one side or the other.

There’s a good chance you find yourself in a situation where STS and STO are in conflict. Maybe it’s your work, your relationship, or your family. Take some time to think about how you could set these two powerful forces in harmony. Instead of having them work against each other, set them both after the same goal. Allow your greed to fuel your service and your service to fuel your greed. Accept and integrate both the selfish and the selfless parts of you. Learn to use both the dark and the light sides of your nature.

Living Life on Purpose

Each of us has a role in life and each one of us is part of a 'bigger' system [the Universe].
As the current system stands we know that there's work to be done.

As a role, if each person helped assist one other individual in a life changing choice, a difference is made. Then, if that person helps in the same way someone else our original good deed is amplified; we've created a "social wave".

The system [the Universe] is connected to me, it's a part of me, it's why I exist - without it there's no way I could be. Each stage of my existence is based on the choices I made. These choices, in connection to the Universe, is what got me to where I am. Whether good or bad, those choices got me here, got me to "my" now. If I had chosen to make my decisions based on other people's choices, then I would be "them". Which is impossible. Even if two individuals were to make the same choices, the Universe's impact on their life, their thoughts, their emotions would eventually produce different results. There can be no two of you, just as there are no two of me.

Society, surroundings, education, peers, etc. all these influences do ultimately impact some of our choices. This is where the Universe allows our humanly nature to take place and thus provides us with life-lessons. Some people choose to continuously repeat, re-live, these life-lessons internally ignoring the Universe's call out to them. They choose to live 'their' life as they please continuously aiming at perfecting something that doesn't exist.

Again, we are part of the Universe and so we are perfect beings. This whole [Universe, God, Buddha, Karma, Source, Light, ...whatever you want to call it] is all that is good, all that is love. Our link, our connection to this 'whole' is our spirit, our soul, it's our connection to Love. Whether you live consciously with a soul or choose to ignore it, either way it's there. You sense it, you feel it, you know it.

When people choose to live 'humanly soul-less' they choose a life-journey continuously looking for something to fulfill a continuous 'gap'. This is where addictions fit in. This is where neglect fits in. This is where 'hurt' is. This is where 'fear' lives. This is a life without belief, without faith, without hope. If I choose to be this way, then I choose to no longer be "me", severing my 'connection' with the Universe and thus living a 'human soul-less' connection based on human rules and regulations created for power and control instilling in me the most powerful obsession of all: fear.

Limiting myself to human-worldly ways, I would allow society to choose my destiny by having them grade me and then accepting it as so. I can only grow as much as I allow myself to grow intellectually since... well I'm not smart enough; I'm not worthy enough; I'm not good enough..

How can this be true if I'm connected to the Universe? How can something, someone, that comes from that whole be not smart enough? It simply isn't true. The whole concept of being smart, being good enough, being worthy is all humanly measured. These measures are rules of this earth and can't be used anywhere else. When I return to the whole, when I return to the Universal Source will I be taking these 'measures' with me? Will God even care that I can't do algebra?

I am me. I am who I am. And my life has meaning. I will make mistakes; and from these I learn. If I wait for others to fall; if I wait for others to pave the way; if I wait for others... I'll never see life with opened eyes, since I will be seeing things through theirs. I need to climb, to grow and to fall in order to discover who I am.
If I never fall, my journey has already failed. If I never climb I will never feel freedom.


Allowing myself to stay closed in a box can provide me with a sense of security and comfort. However opening up that box and stepping out allows me to become free and allows me to stretch and freely breath what I'm allowed to breath. I'm allowed to get out. I'm allowed to have openness and freedom. I'm allowed to be me.


Can I help anyone else with their 'life-lessons'? Yes! Helping others is a wonderful experience, but maybe the question to ask is: Can I allow others to help me? Living in fear, makes me answer no. Living in denial, makes me answer no. Degrading my self-worth, makes me answer no. Thinking I'm not worthy, or that no one will want to, or that I'm a burden, makes me answer no. Pushing my ego aside, allows me to answer yes. Living in love, allows me to answer yes. Choosing to accept and receive the Universe's gift to me, allows me to say yes.

How does "what you do" allow you to move with flexibility and connect with others?


Allowing my growth to expand is to also allow my learning skills to broaden. Those surrounding me impact me in the ways that I allow them to. I must choose what to keep; what to pass on; and know when to just keep walking. Listening to that inner-spirit [Holy Spirit; Feeling of love, of good; your "Third" eye; whatever you call it] and allowing it to communicate through you will provide you and whomever surrounds you with nothing but love.

My status as an individual has an effect on life, my life. I can't change anyone else's life because they need to make their own choices. I can only be a model and share stories that can help form a pattern to assist others in creating their own results.

My choices are mine. My mistakes are mine - they're made by me, by my choices. They weren't anyone else's - because I made them. As long as I learn from my mistakes, then they're no longer mistakes but life-experiences. I accept my choices knowing that my path is being built continuously, by me - and this path [mine] isn't complete... because my choices are still not done.

I leave you with this extract from the book A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson.


"One of the most freeing techniques provided us in A Course in Miracles is a prayer on page 83 of the Text, in which we instruct the universe to undo our errors:

"...the first step in the undoing is to recognize that you actively decided wrongly, but can as actively decide otherwise. Be very firm with yourself in this, and keep yourself fully aware that the undoing process, which does not come from you, is nevertheless within you because God placed it there. Your part is merely to return your thinking to the point at which the error was made, and give it over to the Atonement in peace. Say this to yourself as sincerely as you can, remembering that the Holy Spirit will respond fully to your slightest invitation: 

I must have decided wrongly, because I am not at peace.
I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise.
I want to decide otherwise, because I want to be at peace.
I do not feel guilty, because the Holy Spirit will undo all consequences of my wrong decision if I will let Him.
I choose to let Him, by allowing Him to decide for God for me."

And that's it! It's a course in miracles, not a course in moving furniture. 'Miracles reverse physical laws. Time and space are under His command'." 

Fear - by Fran Watson

FEAR



Of what am I afraid, you ask.
Of myself, I answer,
the self I have hidden
deep down inside.
The one I'm afraid you won't like,
the one I sometimes don't like either.
the scared self.

I'm afraid that parts of this self
will rise to the surface
and I won't be able
to push them back down.
I will no longer be able to hide them
and maybe I'll lose some of what I have…
my friends, my loves,
my present lifestyle.

I feel like so many parts of me
are fighting for control of my being.
I feel torn apart, confused,
wondering what I can safely let out
and what will escape.
I wonder how I'll put myself back together,
which pieces will stay
and which will be gone.

I don't know what will happen
and I'm afraid of the unknown.
It's so much safer
just existing as I am.
but I know I must face myself
if I'm to have any peace.
And I want peace.


Fear
Copyright 2002
Fran Watson

www.franwatson.ca
Renfrew, Ontario




A little about Fran Watson

Fran is an author and a Distinguished Toastmaster who enjoys learning and self-development. Fran earned her BA Social Development Studies through Waterloo University. She has also completed training in Myers Briggs, GATB and Personality Dimensions (True Colors). Fran is currently doing Career Coaching and has over 20 years experience in the field of career and employment counselling. She has developed and facilitated numerous workshops, written articles, and done one-on-one coaching.


To access some of her blogs - click here.

Brené Brown: The power of vulnerability

Brené Brown, PH.D.

What can I say that Brené hasn't? Sensing her poignant view-points and connecting to her story-telling approach, in this TED presentation, is what captivated me. Her selected TED Idea worth spreading topic was: The Power of Vulnerability.

Brené explains that being a social worker for 10 years brought to light that "connection is why we're here. It's what gives purpose and meaning to our lives." [Hum... not being in social work or having had that background, this is good to know...keep going...] "...what we know is that connection, the ability to feel connected is -- neurobiologically that's how we're wired -- it's why we're here." Thus from this knowledge, Brené started her research with the baseline of 'connection'. With connection in mind, she went out asking people about connection stories, and received 'disconnection' stories. Fairly quickly, just about six weeks in to her research, she was halted by an "unnamed thing that absolutely unraveled connection in a way that [she] didn't understand or had never seen", in the end this unnamed thing turned out to be shame.

Brené explains that "...shame is really easily understood as the fear of disconnection. Is there something about me that, if other people know it or see it, that I won't be worthy of connection."


"[The constant] "I'm not [blank] enough I'm not thin enough, rich enough, beautiful enough, smart enough, promoted enough." The thing that underpinned this was excruciating vulnerability, this idea of, in order for connection to happen, we have to allow ourselves to be seen, really seen."

Brené Brown continues her talk describing vulnerability and shame and how we consistently battle these inner-emotions, inner-though processes. This research study started out with an aim of being completed in a year, which then turned out to be six years with a collection of thousands of pieces of data.

Since then, Brené Brown has written a book and published a theory, however still continues on with her research. She's come to realize that with all this data, there's more. She's moved into her next phase of this research and this was to understand sense of worthiness. And with this, Brené ventured off into more untangling of this paradigm - which brought her to choosing to live & love wholeheartedly and to choose authenticity.

I applaud Brené's venture into "Wholehearted" land, since most of us still live in the "vulnerability" forest trying to keep 'numbing' our pains, emotions, visibilities...

I have a lot to learn from Brené Brown [and from countless others, I'm sure]. And this is why my journey to 'source', my journey to 'me', is never ending. The more I learn, the more there is to learn - and the more I apply my learning, the more of myself I discover, which tips me back to needing to learn more...

I hope you enjoyed this learning-video as much as I did. And hopefully I too can choose to live and love wholeheartedly and choose authenticity.

Have you read any of Brené Brown's books [or any of her work]? What are your thoughts on 'vulnerability', 'shame', 'sense of worthiness' and 'connection'?

Here are a few of Brené's Badges - these link to her website:

A Return to Love

In June of 2010, I was introduced to Susan Stewart via an at-work seminar. During her talk, Susan referred to a book by Marianne Williamson entitled A Return to Love. In listening to Susan while she spoke, she held an inspiring energy within her that I so daringly wanted to connect to. Not knowing what this energy was at the time, I simply approached her during one of the breaks and asked her about her work. I was particularly interested in knowing (understanding) why she left her “Corporate world” job and just what made her do it, or how did she go about doing it? I’m sure she just didn’t wake up one day and say to herself, “Ok yup, today’s the day I’m going to quit my job and just turn over a new leaf and do whatever…” No, I’m sure that something had to have happened – because, for me, that’s the only way this would make sense, right? Being the logical person that I am, I need to associate reasoning behind why people do things in order for me to accept and understand their choices. Yes I know, I have self-work to do… I’m working on them-things! …So anyways, Susan looked me directly in the eyes and said, “Just read the book”, referring to her previous mention of A Return to Love.

Time passed-by and I read many other books, just not this one. Why? I don’t know why – probably because I didn’t know what to expect out of this book and deep down inside I wasn’t sure if I was ready for something so life-altering? Then the day arrived. My sister asked me to accompany her to Chapter’s for a few hours. She was looking for a book to assist her with some life-issues she was experiencing, which lead us to the self-help section. Grasping this opportunity, I found the book A Return to Love and purchased it.

Now I don’t know what planet I was living on before this moment, cause I had never heard of this book, let alone ever heard of Marianne Williamson. This book was released back in 1992 and I just, now in 2010, hear about it. The book sold what is believed to be in excess of three million copies and was endorsed by Oprah Winfrey herself. Now where I come from, here on planet earth, if Oprah talks about you – you’ve made it. Made what? Made whatever, Oprah just talked about you! Hello!! So thinking back to where I was (stage of my life back in 1992), explains a lot. I was a lost child running in circles trying to find a corner to sit in.

…I digress.

Taken from Wikipedia, here is a passage from the book that’s been the most popular – repeatedly quoted for inspiration: 

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

What was this book about and why have so many people been impacted by it? The point-blank message is that of love, hence its title. I didn’t know what to expect, let alone be ready for what it was going to give me - a new found outlook on life, on love.

For years I’ve been self-dependent, self-sufficient, self-everything. My motto had been: “I don’t need you, I choose you.” Meaning that I don’t need anyone in my life, you are part of it because I allow it, because I want you to be. Why was this so? Because I had been hurt too many times before; I have had too many people disappoint me, and so now I only rely upon one person and that person is me. This way I control my life, I control what happens to me because I don’t trust anyone. I can love people and things to a certain point, (like I love my dog… yes people I love my Dohzer) but I would keep this love under my control. No one would hurt me again because I wouldn’t allow it. When things aren’t going my way, I would either make them go my way or I would leave.

…and then comes this introduction to love. And not just earth love but the real thing, real love. Gosh was I in for it!

I’ve blocked out all of these things out of my life… spirituality; trust; love; honesty; faith; belief; etc.. I blocked them all out because they weren’t measurable, with tangible data no one can prove this stuff (so I thought). These are all uncertain things that people out there are trying to prove or disprove.

My career is based on technology – everything I do has reasoning behind it, or else it doesn’t succeed. You can’t write code that doesn’t work, the system just won’t run it (understand it). You have to be logical (to me this means smart) in how you approach situations and scenarios because in the end, you have to make a computer system understand what it is you are trying to have it do. Hence why I chose technology as a career, because everything you do – you are accountable for. Nothing is done without you somehow controlling its output. If something isn’t working, there’s a 99.9% chance that its issue is human related. …yes I know I have trust issues, control issues, blah blah blah – but in my state of mind, at the time, was: Computers aren’t the issue, users are. And so fixing computers meant fixing people; and I can do that, cause who else is going to do this, right?

…I digress again.

So anyways back to this ‘real love’ thing.

In the book, Marianne explains that everything originates from love. Her teachings come about from her study of A Course in Miracles. She notes “that (a) shift in our perception is the meaning of miracles”. Marianne doesn’t embellish her stories with cute little fairies – she gets right down to the nitty-gritty on topics of spiritual nature such as God, Hell, Heaven, Forgiveness; and doesn’t conceal emotions people so ethically try to disguise such as Anger, Fear, Shame, Love, Trust...

“For many people, God is a frightening idea.”

When I finally finished this book, I took a long deep breath and… then exhaled. Wow! was this ever mind-boggling. So many teachings from school and Church (I come from a French Catholic background), so many beliefs all gone astray. It’s baffling how society adapts so quickly with what it’s presented. If someone offers you cake, odds are you say “Yes, thank you”.  Only those who know what the cake is make of, or who made it, or why it’s being offered (knowledge) choose to say “No, thank you. But I’ll have some of that ice cream!” …cause we know that there’s more then what we’re being told.

Why must you continuously treat us like children? Why does our Country, our World, our Religions, our Education system limit what it tells us? Why are we only exposed to "what they think we need to know"? That's because it's their way of controlling us. ...and we do nothing about it.

And we as a society why must we choose to continue passing on these values? We hide how we feel and pretend that no one else feels the same way. Everyone hurts. Everyone loves. Why do we choose to just not come out and say things like it is instead of masquerading emotions and hide them behind excuses and reasoning... 

In the end, the message is simple. Live in Love. Whatever you do, choose to do, choose to say, feel, think, whatever – have it be rooted from Love. Ask yourself, where does this come from? Why do I feel this way? And then associate love to it and the results can only be that of good.

For some quick highlights see http://www.peace.ca/a_return_to_love.htm, however as mentioned on this site, to properly understand the highlights, you need to read the book to put them in the proper context.

Did you read the book A Return to Love? What was your take on it?