Series – Creating your own life – 1

 

 

 

We have been afforded the power to work with energy. We came into being to be creators with a freedom of expression. We thus could create whatever we choose in our lives. This is how we became conscious creators. I used the word “conscious” because we were offered the option to create whatever we choose (good – bad – brilliant – disastrous. Every creation (choice) we make take on a life of its own and produce certain outcomes.

 

Rene

 

Are you a WRITER who does not write a PAINTER who does not paint, an ENTREPRENEUR who never starts a venture? Do you feel that SOMETHING prevents you from ACHIEVING your full potential? Then it might be an appropriate moment to take a hard look at how your RESISTENCE arrested your ability to take decisive and sustained action. New Series – No. 24

 

 

You might find the following stunning and difficult to comprehend. Self-doubt and fear can be used to your advantage. The natural thing that most of us do is to move away or run like crazy from the source that activate feelings of fear in us. We usually RESIST the source of fear. We attempt to project a brave face while we look for ways that we can leave the stage and still keep our dignity intact. We are here at earth school to learn and experience. We should view anything and anyone that trigger fear in us as our teachers or opportunities to learn. The first basic lesson that we need to learn is to stop RESISTING things and people that cause fear in our hearts and minds. The uncomfortable feelings we experience come from warped messages programmed into us by well meaning individuals. Our parents and teachers taught us how we should feel and act when confronted with an event that might have a negative outcome. The feelings that wash over us would not have had any impact on us if it had no message for us. The faithful alarm system in our heads is calling us to class so we can learn more about the art of DETACHMENT. We would have remained fully composed if we finished our lessons on the art of RESISTING perceived threats. We need to mentally transform the perceive threat into a watery substance that simply wash over and around us. You must learn the skill of allowing perceived threats to roll off you like water off a ducks back. The same principle can be used when we are expected to do a specific task that we fear. Become like water and move towards your goals and objectives in a relaxed and composed manner. When you look at the champions in life you always discover that they might also initially experience a wave of fear, but then stop RESISTING the cause of their fear and do what needs to be done. They do not see the initial fear chemicals released by the brain as a signal to run for the hills. They welcome the trigger because it tells them that it is time to stop RESISTING and FIGHTING. It will be silly to relax when you are confronted with a snake that is on the verge of injecting you with toxic venom. You will in real emergencies still act in a composed manner and remove yourself from the danger zone. Many say that they felt paralysed by their fear when they faced a perceive threat. It is always a sigh of strong RESISTANCE when you experience fear to a level where you find it difficult to breathe or move. Individuals that get anxiety attacks intensify the dreadful feelings that wash over them when they RESIST these feelings. Many that have been suffering with anxiety attacks for an extensive period cannot even recall what initially set the whole cycle in motion. All they know is that they fear their next attack. Individuals that suffer regular anxiety attacks will be amazed when they one day just sit back, breathe in a relaxed manner and stop RESISTING the dreadful feelings that they experience. They will soon discover that the attacks are nothing more than a toothless tiger. The so-called attacks soon run out of fuel.

 

The key to fear management is thus not combat. Go out today and check how many times you notice feelings of RESISTANCE that attempt to get your attention. Try and figure out what lesson you can learn from that event. Manage any event with a dose of NON-RESISTANCE. Become DETACHED like water or see the attack as nothing more than water as explained earlier. I will continue this series tomorrow.

 

Rene

 

 

 

Power Tool: Recall this image and win! Detachment is a powerful key when used for self-defense. You must allow the poisonous comments, remarks, criticism and condemnation of others to flow past you like water rolls off a ducks back. If you experience pain or hurt after you tried to “detach” it indicates that you are still absorbing the criticism etc. with your mind and failed to apply real “non-action” and “detachment”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The doctor on his morning walk, noticed an older lady sitting on her front step smoking a cigar, so he walked up to her and said, “I couldn’t help but notice how happy you look! What is your secret?”

 

“I smoke ten cigars a day,” she said. “Before I go to bed, I smoke a nice big joint. Apart from that, I drink a whole bottle of Jack Daniels every week, and eat only junk food. On weekends, I pop pills, get laid, and don’t exercise at all.”

“That is absolutely amazing! How old are you?”

“Thirty-four,” she replied.

 

Thank you Anton for this Smile for a While!

 

Passive people habitually submit to other people’s dominance play, do not have clear boundaries, and are constantly being invaded by others.

 

The feeling of personal power is key in all interpersonal relationships. Many people are not very clear about what assertiveness is and how it differs from aggressiveness. One main difference is that aggressiveness is about power over other people, while assertiveness is about being able to assert our rights and stand up for our thoughts and feelings while respecting the rights, thoughts and feelings of others.

Passive people habitually submit to other people’s dominance play, do not have clear boundaries, and are constantly being invaded by others. They tend to avoid conflict by not expressing their thoughts and feelings, avoid any sort of confrontations even when their basic rights are involved, which leaves them feeling – and being – victimized. At the same time, anger builds up in them, so when they do speak up, they tend to do it in an aggressive, attacking and blaming way rather than a constructive, solution-oriented, assertive way.

Aggressive people, on the other hand, attempt to impose their will on others, do not respect other people’s boundaries and are invasive and coercive. Aggressive people may get their way with some people at first, but in the long-run they alienate others, create a lot of stress in their social, family and work environment, experience a lot of failures in all interpersonal relationships and end up having no social support and feeling isolated and victimized themselves.

Somewhere in the middle stands assertiveness which is a way of communicating and behaving that respects the rights of all relationship partners. Assertiveness requires honesty, directness, self-confidence, knowing what your rights are and being able to defend them in positive, constructive ways. Learning to act more assertively will increase your sense of efficacy, of having an impact on your environment, your chances of having honest, straight-forward relationships, your chances of getting your needs met, will improve your ability to make your own decisions and get more satisfaction out of life.

Assertiveness is based on two important traits: relatively good self-confidence and good communication skills.

Self-confidence is built through our experience of effectiveness in the world. This effectiveness can be measured in many areas of experience, like academic or professional achievement, physical or athletic abilities, social and personal relationships, etc. Self-confidence is built from the inside out, meaning that we don’t expect others to provide us with self-confidence but we build it by giving ourselves credit for our strengths, virtues and accomplishments.

Good communication skills involve being a good listener as well being a good speaker and being able to appraise a situation in a cool-headed, non-defensive or fearful manner . Assertive communicators have developed some specific skills for standing up and speaking up for themselves. They have fewer conflicts in their dealings with others, and their needs are more frequently met, so they feel happier and more in control of life situations. Most people desiring to become more assertive start from a passive behavioral baseline and require quite a bit of practice in assertive communication skills before they can see any change in the power balance between them and other people. So start slowly in the beginning, and gradually practice more and more assertive communication skills.

Here are a few tips on what communication skills you need to develop and practice:

Maintain eye contact when you are in a conversation. This way you communicate a self-confident and honest message.

Be specific and direct about what you want, think or feel. Practice making statements like “I want to..”, or “I think…”.

Learn to say “no”.

Use your body language to emphasize your words. When making a demand or a request, stand up straight and speak in a loud and clear voice.

Don’t get personal or over-emotional when you feel your rights are being violated. Comment on the person’s behavior rather than attacking the person. Use “I” statements, instead of “you” statements that sound like accusations. Feel free to say, “I don’t like it when you yell at me” or “I don’t appreciate not being treated fairly”. Asserting yourself this way balances the power between you and the other person. Once you comment on the inappropriate behavior, don’t forget to request the more appropriate behavior that you would like to take its place, like, “I would like you to be on time when we have a date”.

Learn to reward people for positive behavior and establish a positive cooperative spirit in all interpersonal relationships.

Choose the right time and the right place for resolving issues, making sure that the other person is emotionally willing to start a conversation. Otherwise, whatever you have to say may be forgotten or overlooked.

Express your opinions honestly and do not hesitate to have a different opinion from that of other people even if those people are significant to you or in a position of authority – you still are entitled to your own opinions. “Own” your message, acknowledging that you opinion comes from your own perception of the situation, and your own frame of reference. If no agreement can be found that respects the opinion of both parties, then you can “agree to disagree” on the specific issue.

Practice leadership skills like making overtures to other people, offering positive suggestions to peers and colleagues in a positive, friendly, cooperative spirit, and supporting your own opinions, suggestions and proposals with clear and convincing arguments.

Ask for feedback. Encourage others to be clear, direct and specific in their feedback to you. This way, many misunderstandings in the conversation can be easily resolved and you also convey the message that you equally respect the opinion, feelings and rights of others as much as you respect your own.

Reward yourself every time you manage to overcome your fears and habitual passive reactions and are able to formulate an assertive response, regardless of its effect on the other person or the situation.

The important thing is that you keep practicing and reinforcing your assertive communication skills, rather than your initial effectiveness. It may be a new way of communicating for you, so it may take some time before it feels natural, but the more you practice your assertive communication skills, the more confidence you will gain and you will find out that not only is it really easy, but it’s also very effective.

.

Ismini Apostoli

 

THE DAY A UFO LANDED AT A SCHOOL IN ZIMBABWE

 

Ruwa, Zimbabwe
September 16, 1994

 
On the morning of September 16, 1994, teachers and school officials at the Ariel School in Ruwa, Zimbabwe were amazed when the school’s students, aged approximately 5 to 12 years old, reported that a flying object had landed on the school grounds.

The teachers at the school were in a meeting, so the 62 children were basically unsupervised while in the schoolyard on morning recess. The only available adult seems to have been one of the mothers, who was operating the school tuck shop – a sort of snack bar where candy, snacks and sodas are sold.

According to some sources, UFOs had been seen in the skies over Zimbabwe for two days before the incident occurred. Ruwa is about 20 kilometers from Harare, the capitol of Zimbabwe. Ariel School is a private elementary school with students of mixed ethnic heritage.

The children said that they had first seen three objects in the sky. These objects would disappear and then reappear in a different location. The objects moved closer and closer to the ground and finally landed in a brushy area adjacent to the schoolyard. This area had not been fully cleared yet and was off-limits to the students. The object landed, or hovered just above the ground, in an area about 100 meters from the students.

The children said that a small man, about one meter in height, appeared on top of the object. The little man, who was described as having a scrawny neck, long black hair, and huge eyes, walked a short way across the ground toward the students. When he noticed the children, he vanished and then reappeared at the back of the object. The object then took off and vanished.

The smaller children were very frightened and cried for help. They believed that the little man was a demon who would eat them. Black African children have heard legends of tokoloshis, demons who eat children. The children ran to the tuck shop operator, but she did not want to leave the shop unattended and so did not go.

The late Cynthia Hind, known as Africa’s foremost UFO investigator, investigated the case the next day. When she was first contacted, she asked the headmaster of the school, Colin Mackie, to have the children draw pictures of what they had seen. When she arrived at the school, he had about 35 drawings for her. The drawings were of very similar objects.

‘I swear by every hair on my head and the whole Bible that I am telling the truth.’

The headmaster affirmed that he believed that the students were telling the truth, and one little girl told Cynthia Hind that, ‘I swear by every hair on my head and the whole Bible that I am telling the truth.’

Dr. John Mack, the abduction researcher, and his associate Dominique Callimanopulos went to Ruwa and spent two days interviewing and counseling twelve of the children and their parents.

“Those thoughts came from the man – the man’s eyes.”

Curiously, the older students said that they felt that the creatures communicated with them somehow, sending the message that we humans are destroying our planet, polluting the environment in ways that will have dire consequences.

The Sightings TV show did a report on the Ariel School landing, and CSETI has a RealPlayer video taken from the TV program with actual testimony from the children.

Watch Clip – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgZE8s0hBRQ&feature=player_embedded

 

 

You’re not broken. There’s nothing wrong with you. You are born completely free, whole, wild, and beautifully complete. But somewhere along the line an ugly lie gets embedded into your mental software. We start to think that we need to become.

 

 

The views and opinions of others are a petty tyrant when compared to your opinion of yourself. What you think of yourself is more valuable than any external validation or outward symbol of authority.

 

Self-validation and internal congruence is where the real battle takes place. Winning over your own heart and mind — not those of others — is what truly makes the difference between an unfulfilled or a purposeful, full life.

 

But so often we do the exact opposite of what we truly want. We have habits or addictions that hold us back. We have unwanted thought patterns stuck on auto-repeat.

 

A stop button, unfortunately, isn’t built into the dashboard of our minds. We’re born without a manual, so we have to do the best we can to find our own path.

 

Here’s the thing…

 

You Are Born Completely Free

 

It’s not your fault. You’re not broken. There’s nothing wrong with you. You are born completely free, whole, wild, and beautifully complete. But somewhere along the line an ugly lie gets embedded into your mental software. We start to think that we need to become.

 

And once we eat that lie, a whole network of contaminated beliefs take root within us. We start to think we need to defend our position. We feel the urge to prove ourselves. We start looking outside for validation because we’re not getting it from ourselves.

 

Sometimes rebellion is a positive thing. When you’re questioning false-contexts and limiting structures, the results can be highly beneficial. But when you’re rebelling against yourself, you defeat yourself before you even step onto the battlefield.

 

So how exactly do you reclaim ownership of your mind? What strategies are necessary for winning this battle?

 

1. Examine the battlefield. The first step is to get a clear picture of the battlefield. You have to know exactly where the insurgents are hidden and where the biggest challenges will be faced. Review your current life situation. Where do you hold yourself back? Where do you defeat yourself before you start? In what ways are you hurtful or insulting to yourself? This might be hard to do. We don’t like to admit that we aren’t doing our best. Remember, it’s not your fault. You didn’t choose to eat the lies; no one in their right mind would choose to accept unhelpful mental patterns. But that doesn’t change the fact that they are there. Accept that they exist so you can do something about it, no matter how difficult it may be.

 

2. Enroll in mind-training. No fighter can expect to be successful without the proper training and preparation. You can’t expect to be successful at abolishing limitations with an untrained mind. In order to win the battle, you will need to engage in daily mindfulness training. Meditation practice can be one form of this, but there are 23 and 1/2 other hours in the day that we can’t ignore. We must do our best to bring mindfulness into the remainder of our day as well; our relationships with others and with ourselves. We can’t expect to change without awareness.

 

3. Engage in specialty training. Having a specific art that you can practice as self-development will be invaluable an invaluable tool in your arsenal for uprooting and terminating falsehood. A daily or almost-daily practice is usually best. It might be something personal like mastering the guitar, or it could be a group-endeavor like martial arts. Any way that you can specialize your training to something you’re deeply passionate about, that challenges you to grow, and makes your practice tangible will be incredibly useful in your journey to mind-ownership.

 

4. Create the proper training environment. You can’t expect to become fit without proper training tools and positive reinforcement. The same is true for reclaiming your mind. The more you can setup your environment to be truth-reinforcing, the more you increase your chances for success. This might mean printing intentions and putting them on a board over your workspace. It could be surrounding your space with things that inspire you, and are symbols of your passions. If you’re a writer and an anthropologist, it might mean having a nice pen and notebook always nearby, a comfortable chair to sit in, a shelf with your favorite books around you, and photos of inspiring discoveries or reports of breakthrough studies. Whatever your practice or art of self-development is, make sure your environment is supportive of your success.

 

5. Rally your troops. The more you can participate in a community of others in the quest for heart and mind reclamation, the easier it will be for you to stick to your goal. This might be formal, like a weekly mastermind group or meet up. Or it could mean blogging and being involved in a community of others interested in your chosen passion. By participating in a group, you tap into a source of energy greater than you could have accessed on your own.

 

6. Cultivate mental toughness. The crusade to reclaim your mind is a difficult one. It’s not something that happens overnight. Just when you think you’ve pulled the last weed, another one stubbornly seems to pop up. The fight for your mind is a long-term endeavor. It’s something I’ve been engaged in for much of my life. And while the skirmishes do become less and less frequent, I find there is always another level of training. In order to win, you have to be persistent.

 

7. Learn the art of fighting without fighting. At some point, you’ll probably realize that the way to stop the war is to stop showing up. If there is nothing to fight against, there can be no fight. Be warned, this will probably make your invisible adversary very angry at first. He will scream louder, abusing you more for your heartless ignorance of his ridicule and criticism. The best thing to do is to accept it and let him tire out. When you face things head on they lose much of their power. With the art of fighting without fighting, you will likely need to use both weapons of artful ignorance and peaceful, non-violent resistance.

 

Uprooting and putting down insurgent undesired beliefs or thought patterns is the only way to reclaim ownership or your mind. I personally believe that this single, deliberate pursuit is perhaps the most important one you can undertake in your life. Because, ultimately, what this fight comes down to is a cleansing of falsehood and the embodiment of truth. When you live radically in truth, when you unabashedly go with yourself, when there is no internal division, you embrace your own power and potential.

 

And when you do that, some amazing things start to happen. The pieces of your life seem to just fall into place. You follow your heart and aren’t afraid to pursue your dreams. You realize your potential and hold nothing back. You create something beautiful and inspire others to do the same.

 

YOU COULD POP INTO THE READING ROOM – GPS WISDOM FILES ONCE A DAY AND READ SOME OF THE INSPIRATIONAL AND MOTIVATIONAL STUFF THAT I POST DAILY. THIS WILL ASSIST YOU TO KEEP YOUR MENTAL ENERGY STRONG AND HELP YOU TO SEE THINGS AS THERE ARE AND NOT THE WAY YOU HAVE BEEN CONDITIONED TO SEE THEM. THINK ABOUT IT – ONE VISIT A DAY CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE! – RENE

 

The Pathway to Personal Freedom

 

 

 

When you were born you arrived without an instructional manual! You were expected to figure things out as you evolved. And everyone else was in the same boat.

We learnt initially by imitation. Repeating words that our parents taught us. By the time we were 4-5 years old we were starting to figure things out and our individual personality began to develop.

Then we went to school and were moulded into a functioning individual. Rather like a bakery. The dough is placed into hundreds of bread moulds and when cooked all the loaves look the same. So it is with us by the end of our basic schooling. We have learnt to fit into society and have been taught the basic reading and writing skills that enable us to join the workforce. And here the pressure to conform really begins. If we displease our boss our job is on the line.

Likewise in our social environment we don’t really want to displease our church, family or members of our social groups.
Everything is a compromise because we have no real individual freedom.

That is we are not free to do things the way we really want to.

And as we grow into adulthood and start a family the same pressures to conform are still with us. Society expects us to behave in an acceptable way… that is… acceptable to the society we live in.

As we progress through life we slowly come to the realisation that we are not a free spirit and never have been. It gets to the point where many individuals suddenly rebel and go off at a tangent.

Which is why so many marriages fail these days. In the “good old days” unhappy marriage partners stuck together “for the sake of the family”. There used to be tremendous social pressures on married couples to “hang in there”. These days there is no such pressure. People who have been confined and restricted all their life suddenly break out. There are plenty of alternatives available to unhappy individuals and a massive amount of information available thanks to the internet and a more open news media approach.

You have the right to be free and happy

The point is… you have the right to be free and happy. If you are not then you are denying yourself this basic freedom. The old attitude might have been acceptable 40 years ago but it now no longer applies.

Many of you reading this will recognise the truth of the above analysis and will be asking what you can do about it.

To pull yourself away from the personal traps you need to sit down and rethink your beliefs and attitudes.

Many of us have developed beliefs that are simply no longer valid and we pursue them merely from force of habit. We need to break these habits and reprogram our personal belief system so that we feel we are the master of our own destinies!

At any one point in time each and every sane individual is either doing that which makes them the happiest or doing that which makes them the least unhappy. Most individuals operate in the latter category.

Think about the things you have done so far today. Did they make you seriously happy or did you do them so that you wouldn’t be unhappy? I’ll bet that less than 5% of them actually made you happy! In fact think back over the past week and isolate one single event that made you blissfully happy and personally satisfied.

It has taken me many years to sort out my belief system to the point where I now feel almost totally free. And I made a ton of mistakes along the way because I didn’t have an instruction manual to help me.

In instruction manual for personal freedom

But you are in a totally different position because you are currently reading this vital instruction manual!!

The vast majority of individuals get stuck in this rut all their lives but occasionally a traumatic event breaks them out of it. For example a person might become seriously ill and their doctor advises that they only have 6 months to live. Now some people will roll over and pretend to be dead the moment they hear this while others will suddenly realise that they haven’t lived life at all and go hell-bent on catching up. These are the ones who get so involved in doing all those things they always wanted to do that their illness suddenly disappears. There are many recorded instances of these miraculous cures, particularly in regard to cancer. Just stop for a moment and visualise what you would do in this situation.

You might be stuck with a time-wasting family situation of visiting Auntie Nellie and Uncle Erntwhistle every Sunday fortnight for dinner because that’s what you have always done and it is expected of you. If you got sudden bad news like this would you continue to visit them or would you head off to do some jet-skiing or parasailing?

Chances are you would mentally cut all the things out of your life that didn’t matter and do only those things that did. And this is where you can sit down and make a list of all the important things you do each month. Take some time about it and make a complete list. Now imagine which items you would cross out if you knew you had limited time left. You would probably find that 80% of the so-called important items had been deleted.

This is the exercise I did many years ago when I realised I was wasting my life on garbage non-productive events. I crossed out all the things that didn’t really matter, particularly those items that I felt obliged to participate in because of social or family pressure. I got somewhat unpopular initially but others soon realised I had taken a new lease on life and left me alone.

My thinking was that this life of mine was not a practice run and I’d better start living it otherwise I would go to my deathbed with a ton of regrets.

Just visualise lying in a hospital bed with all your family around you in the certain knowledge that you are dying and suddenly realising that there were many things in life that you hadn’t done. You had “missed out” because of your inertia and were extremely sad about it. Do you want to spend the last few moments suffering from massive regrets? No… I don’t think so!

It is over to you to correct this situation NOW.

 

By James F. Coyle, Author of The Freedom Book