News
No new updates for this week.
I will not be able to send a message next week due to my schedule.
Instead of sharing a quote and my thoughts this week, I wanted to share something I read on Paulo Coelho's blog earlier today.
Relax and Pay Attention
by Paulo Coelho
Sometimes we keep on waiting – with patience, resignation, courage – and still, things around us don’t move. But since this is the path we chose, it seems impossible that life’s blessings are not working in our favor. It provokes, therefore, a deep reflection about what we call “results:” our destiny is manifesting itself in a way we are not able to fully comprehend .
Jorge Luís Borges wrote a masterly short story about this issue.
He describes the birth of a tiger that spends great part of its life in the African wildness but ends up being captured and taken to a zoo in Italy. From then on, the animal thinks his life has lost sense and there is nothing left to do but wait for the day he dies.
One fine day, poet Dante Alighieri passes by this zoo, looks at the tiger, and the animal inspires a verse – in the midst of thousands of verses – of “The Divine Comedy.”
“The entire battle for survival that tiger went through was only so that it could be at the zoo on that morning and inspire an immortal verse,” says Borges.
Just like this tiger, we all have a reason – a very important reason – to be here, at this moment, this morning.
So relax. And pay attention.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Why We Are Here
News
No new updates for this week.
Instead of sharing a quote and my thoughts this week, I have decided to share this story with you.
Story
Why We Are Here
by Idries Shah
Walking one evening along a deserted road, Mulla Nasrudin saw a troop of horsemen coming towards him. His imagination started to work; he saw himself captured and sold as a slave, or impressed into the army.
Nasrudin bolted, climbed a wall into a graveyard, and lay down in an open tomb. Puzzled at his strange behaviour, the men - honest travelers - followed him. They found him stretched out, tense and quivering.
"What are you doing in that grave? We saw you run away. Can we help you?"
"Just because you can ask a question does not mean that there is a straightforward answer to it," said the Mulla, who now realized what had happened.
"It all depends on your viewpoint. If you must know, however: I am here because of you, and you are here because of me."
No new updates for this week.
Instead of sharing a quote and my thoughts this week, I have decided to share this story with you.
Story
Why We Are Here
by Idries Shah
Walking one evening along a deserted road, Mulla Nasrudin saw a troop of horsemen coming towards him. His imagination started to work; he saw himself captured and sold as a slave, or impressed into the army.
Nasrudin bolted, climbed a wall into a graveyard, and lay down in an open tomb. Puzzled at his strange behaviour, the men - honest travelers - followed him. They found him stretched out, tense and quivering.
"What are you doing in that grave? We saw you run away. Can we help you?"
"Just because you can ask a question does not mean that there is a straightforward answer to it," said the Mulla, who now realized what had happened.
"It all depends on your viewpoint. If you must know, however: I am here because of you, and you are here because of me."
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Confronting Reality
News
No new updates for this week.
Quote
“At the center of your being
you have the answer;
you know who you are
and you know what you want.”
-Lao Tzu
My Thoughts
I touched on this topic a few weeks ago. You have the answers to the deep questions of life inside you already. The best way I have found to hear the answers is to follow your intuition and one of the best ways to follow your intuition is to quiet your mind. The method that I happen to use to quiet my mind is through meditation.
With that being said, there is another topic that I'd like to touch on this week. It is a topic that oftentimes comes up during my coaching sessions. It is one that I think has a lot of people that are interested in personal growth confused.
I am talking about ignoring reality.
In order for true, lasting growth to happen we need to be aware of our current situation. We can't ignore it. If we do, it will eventually catch up to us.
You may be thinking, "Yes, that is obvious.". But sometimes people do it without fully realizing they are doing it.
I'll give you an example. A person thinks they should feel happy (or if not happy, at least good) all the time. When they start feeling down, they ignore it by saying that they feel great. Inside they don't really feel great and they end up feeling bad about feeling bad. This then tends to pull the person down further because they think that they "should" be feeling good. The whole idea of using the word "should" is a topic for another message.
The point here is that some people in the personal growth industry are always talking about how you need to use empowering words all the time and never say certain things. I agree that words can have power and meaning. I disagree with the fact that we need to use them all the time.
If you are feeling down or not so great:
1. Admit it. Recognize the situation that you are in.
2. Write out the things you are grateful for.
3. Realize that your situation can get better.
4. Then you can start to look at the words you are using to describe yourself and your situation.
There are several ways to do step 3. To keep this message short, I'll share one of those ways. You can compare yourself to someone (which people usually do anyway, but often they are comparing the things they don't have to someone that is perceived to be better off thus making them feel not good). The method to do this is: Is my situation really that bad...compared to what? For example: Is my situation really that bad compared to the homeless person I see every morning?
Remember that somebody somewhere is wishing or praying for the things that you take for granted.
Have an excellent week!
No new updates for this week.
Quote
“At the center of your being
you have the answer;
you know who you are
and you know what you want.”
-Lao Tzu
My Thoughts
I touched on this topic a few weeks ago. You have the answers to the deep questions of life inside you already. The best way I have found to hear the answers is to follow your intuition and one of the best ways to follow your intuition is to quiet your mind. The method that I happen to use to quiet my mind is through meditation.
With that being said, there is another topic that I'd like to touch on this week. It is a topic that oftentimes comes up during my coaching sessions. It is one that I think has a lot of people that are interested in personal growth confused.
I am talking about ignoring reality.
In order for true, lasting growth to happen we need to be aware of our current situation. We can't ignore it. If we do, it will eventually catch up to us.
You may be thinking, "Yes, that is obvious.". But sometimes people do it without fully realizing they are doing it.
I'll give you an example. A person thinks they should feel happy (or if not happy, at least good) all the time. When they start feeling down, they ignore it by saying that they feel great. Inside they don't really feel great and they end up feeling bad about feeling bad. This then tends to pull the person down further because they think that they "should" be feeling good. The whole idea of using the word "should" is a topic for another message.
The point here is that some people in the personal growth industry are always talking about how you need to use empowering words all the time and never say certain things. I agree that words can have power and meaning. I disagree with the fact that we need to use them all the time.
If you are feeling down or not so great:
1. Admit it. Recognize the situation that you are in.
2. Write out the things you are grateful for.
3. Realize that your situation can get better.
4. Then you can start to look at the words you are using to describe yourself and your situation.
There are several ways to do step 3. To keep this message short, I'll share one of those ways. You can compare yourself to someone (which people usually do anyway, but often they are comparing the things they don't have to someone that is perceived to be better off thus making them feel not good). The method to do this is: Is my situation really that bad...compared to what? For example: Is my situation really that bad compared to the homeless person I see every morning?
Remember that somebody somewhere is wishing or praying for the things that you take for granted.
Have an excellent week!
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