Choosing Happiness Now

Choosing to be happy now, takes courage and strength.  I don't always have that kind of courage.
I notice I run from discomfort, negative remarks and comments, I run from challenging someones opinion, if it is different from mine.  I have heretofore called that behavior allowing them to think that way, who am I to say...
But rather than make me stronger, that has made me weaker.  There is a big difference in running away from negativity, and just being with it.  Not agreeing with or disagreeing with, but just being there.

There is something infinitely courageous and strengthening about allowing.  It develops an inner strength, that becomes unshakable and as Viktor Frankel says " A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth -- that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss."
If you don't know, Viktor Frankel spent WWII in a Nazi Concentration camp, was beaten, starved and robbed.  For him to discover that people can take every freedom from you except your thoughts, one has to admit he walked his talk.
So, the real possibility becomes "if he can, I can'.

Here is to love and happiness, circumstances be dammed!

Untying the Knotted Mind

Maybe our biggest challenge is untying the knot of self-deception, and make no mistake, it is a tangled knot we inherited from our parents and ancestors.

The more I read of the 'great' beings that have blessed our history and some that are publishing books in our generation, the more I am amazed by the commitment of 'normal' society to keep us asleep, unaware and unconscious to the miracle resting within each of us.

In every spiritual tradition there is at least one who kept saying, you too can connect to the power of our world and inherit it's wealth, or love or health, and yet we continually struggle with these very issues.  Where is the disconnect?  Why all the struggle? 

I can only answer that from my very limited experience of dealing with my brainwashed mind, from my life.  I have seen myself effortlessly produce results, and right after that moment, fear grips my mind "How did I do that?"  "Did I do that?" "Can I ever do it again?"  and right there I stuff my power, in my socks, basically.  I both fear power and fear the demands of a life devoted to what JF Kennedy Jr said, "To whom much is given much is required"  Ouch!  I don't want the demands of expectations, and ever challenging tasks.  Again, right there I push my power, in my socks.

So, to come to terms with the self-deceptions, suppression, ego trips (both to "I'm so great" to the other country "I suck") and addictions to playing small.  That is a one step at a time, one intention at a time, one prayer at a time ordeal.  There is no fast road, no e-z path, just focus, trust and action. 

Well, that's the path I've been on.

Powerfully Complete 2011

We are coming to a close of 2011, which means it is the beginning of 2012.  But how to create 2012 as something unique, self-expressed and joyful, and not just an extension of 2011, or 2010 or 2009?

The real secret is by coming to terms of what happened in 2011.  Tell the truth of the ups and the downs that happened in the year.

What did you succeed at?  Where did you fall short of your goals?  What regrets to you have?  What accomplishments?

The trick is to be ruthlessly honest with yourself.  In the book, "Think and Grow Rich"  by Napoleon Hill, it gives you a ruthless Self-Assessment Questionnaire.  I do the quiz, not to see where I succeeded, but to be honest with myself as to where I fell short, where my ego got the best of me, where I judged too harshly, where I fell short of generosity and compassion.

Once I can view honestly my behavior and results from the year (remembering that results do not lie), I can then honestly and freely create the next week or month or year.  Doing this simple, yet demanding, task, has strengthened, and served my soul, not my ego. 

Success is Stumbling, Just Not Falling

I has taken me years to understand that what I think is success, isn't, and what I think is failure, isn't.
It occurs to me that success is a string of small stumbles and near misses, that add up to a sort of victory.  But it's no sure bet, or clean shot, or even easy access. 
Real success is the step by step win over the inner demons that tell me what a (fill in here)  I am, or how (blank)  is that, and on and on.  The incessant, constant judgement of myself and others, and yet to stand along side that and still take actions towards the goal, or dream;  that is true success.
As I am reminded by the yin/yang icon, there is the dark in the light and light in the dark.  You can't erase all of it, but you can embrace it.  I have found a kind of power in that.  A true sense of accomplishment.

Consider the Art of Breathing

Breath.  We breathe in and out.  Without that simple function, we expire.   Yet we take for granted this simple act of life.  Breath is one simple & elegant action we can take that allows us to experience the give and receive exchange that underlies our world.  We breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide, the trees around us 'breathe' in carbon dioxide and 'breathe' out oxygen.  Exchange, it is what makes our world function, survive and thrive.  

The next thing to notice is that you don't have to struggle to breathe, you don't have to shake yourself  and tell yourself, "Oh, I forgot to breathe".  It occurs as a natural function of your life.  It is an effortless function.  

Maybe it's time to consider that exchange is the natural flow of the universe, and to allow yourself to be in the natural flow of the universe, take time to pay attention to your breath.  When you breathe in silently say to yourself, "I am receiving"  and when you breathe out say "I am giving".  

That simple exercise has helped me through some long dark moments and has heightened the loving kind moments to inexpressible joy.  Try it on.  See what you get.

Simple & Elegant

Meditation, or just stopping long enough for your mind to ease up, has opened my eyes to the simple  elegance of nature.  I live in Los Angeles, and in less than 2 hours drive in any direction,  I can be at the beach, or the mountains or the dessert.  No matter which environment I walk within, I am awed by nature, its abundance, intelligence and perisitence.  With all the stops and distructions that humanity tries to extend to our world, our world keeps working brilitatly and easily.  There is no strain, no struggle, just growth.  I see blades of grass pushing up through blocks of cement.  Cement cannot stop grass from growing. 

So why do we as human beings suffer, struggle, strife, feel that there is lack and limitation?  Why persist in that level of thinking, when to observe nature just the opposite is apparent?  Seems as if we want to struggle, we like the strain.  To really strain and struggle for success justifies that you deserve it.  What if there was no such thing as deserve or not deserve?  What if it had nothing to do with deserving at all?  What could we design our life around then?

What if it were true?

What if what all the Quantum Scientists, and the spiritual leaders have said for centuries, was true?  That we are all one?  That we are dynamically and energetically connected?  Our thoughts are just that 'our thoughts'. 
That if we want a better world, it starts with us, not 'them' changing to make us happy or comfortable or feel safe, but we change the thinking paradigm that we are trapped within of greed, lust, drama, lack, &  limitation. 
We stopped waiting for the politicians or bankers to change the world, but we changed so the 'money rulers' had to adjust to meet us?

What if we just tried that thought on for a few minutes a day each day.

I was raised in a world of complaints and victimization.  My parents, as great as they were, complained, so I learned to complain and see myself as a victim.  What if I could choose to re-think my life, circumstances, and beliefs, and allowed the greater power to develop within me, and think as the great masters have, the Gandhi's, Abraham Lincolns, Mother Theresa's, and all the other great ones that don't get the same exposure, but lived and breathed and supported our evolution just the same.  What if I choose to be guided by that?  What is possible?

It's a question worth investigating.