What would the implications be if we discovered that God want or need nothing from nobody? I know some of the readers may experience feelings of anxiety, fear, anger or even panic when they attempt to contemplate what might look like a preposterous statement far removed from the historical “God perceptions” that we grew up with. What would have happened to mankind if they discovered a long time ago that God actually never needed or expected anything from anyone?
Would there have been any meaningful theology?
Would there have been any churches?
Would there have been the endless number of religions and spiritual movements with all their individual dogmas?
Would there have been the ongoing love – fear relationships that many still experience today when they think of the God concept promoted by their church?
Would there have been fear of death, hell and Satan?
Would there have been fear of old age?
Would there have been the religious wars where many millions were killed in the name of various Gods?
Would there have been a Roman Catholic, Christian and a Muslim Movements that boast with billions of followers?
The reason why many of us still insist that God have always had strict requirements is because in some peculiar way it provides us with a sense of worthiness. Some might even reason that they will have to become atheists if they bought into the idea that God needs nothing from nobody. The idea never cross their mind that most of the God perceptions that they cling to were planted in their heads when still very young.
Churches, clergy, priests, emperors, kings etc. worked themselves into a very powerful and influential position by claiming that they are the earthly representatives of some or other God. They revealed hundreds of laws, rules, regulations and expectations that the God according to their perception of Him insist that must be enforced to make Him happy and assist Him to remain composed and not lose His cool. The prescriptions were always linked to dire warnings that, if ignored or not address to the letter would result in serious punishment in the near future or in some kind of afterlife. These warning included predictions of death, destruction, famine, droughts and hardship. These predictions were initially enough to control their followers and keep them subservient. It later became necessary to turn up the heat regarding God’s expectations and needs. This is where those that thought that they might get away with disobedience to God’s commands (like totally wiping out a so-called pagan nation) discovered that God also have a record keeping system and a court of law in heaven that is waiting for those that failed to fulfil the stipulated requirements when they die . The concept of Hell and everlasting damnation after death tightened the screws of control to a level where most in a sheep like manner remain loyal to the church.
The endless laws, rules and regulations continued to flow from God through so-called inspired individuals until Constantine decided to collate a book (The Bible). All the mystical inspired chats between God and the authors suddenly dried up. Not a single person according to this philosophy have been inspire after this event. God vanished from the stage of life and apparently retreated into his heavenly abode. The clergy however kept churning out endless often self-serving commands by interpreting the historical laws and commandments and in this manner kept the upper hand, power and money flowing.
Stop for a moment and think about the statements that I made above. Let us play for a moment with the idea that God never demanded anything from anyone. What would the implications be if man made Gods for themselves in their own image? What would the implications be if the depictions of the Gods were wrong and that God never insisted on the endless range of requirements now cast in stone in their Holy Books? What if the real God (life force) never meddled with man and allowed each individual to work out his own fate and future on a moment to moment basis with the choices he or she make? What if God gave man free will to make any choice and never metered out any punishment, but like a good parent allows His now physically mature children to learn via their own mistakes? Do not reject this option. Think about it for a moment and you will discover that a million and one things that might have bothered you about your current God concept now suddenly fall into place.
Being at peace is the wonderful state of mind and body where all is calm, where thoughts are quiet and serene, and where muscles are relaxed and comfortable. In this article, you’ll learn how to attain this inner peace in a matter of minutes.
Once you are adept at controlling your mind and body, you are always only one simple thought away from perfect peacefulness.
You can “will” perfect peacefulness at any time. You will be able to move out of stressful situations immediately. All you need to do is follow a few simple steps to train yourself. A little practice is all that is required. But, you must take the time to direct the mind and body in positive ways so that you can ensure the pleasures of inner peace.
You’re at the wheel. So let’s drive on!
Let peace happen.
Being at peace is a choice. When we stop struggling and fighting the world around us—and the world within us—peace can happen. Our individual fight is with our thoughts, emotions and physical bodies. The fighting can be directed toward ourselves or those we face each day. Here are several approaches to quickly give up the fight and win at the same time.
There are many ways your physical body can take on struggles you face each day. Maybe you clench your jaw when you get mad. Maybe you collect tension across the back of your neck and shoulders. Maybe butterflies trouble your stomach. The first step is being aware of what you are doing. The second step is to consciously make the choice to release the tension.
Your mind takes on struggles in the form of mental images. Do you tend to imagine the ideal end result or the worst possible situation? Troubling and negative mental images translate into unpleasant emotions and stressful physical reactions.
Choose carefully the thoughts you think because they absolutely affect how you feel. Realize that the only person who can change your thoughts is you. You can then take charge and change your thoughts for the better.
Emotions are natural physiological changes that occur when thoughts are held in your mind. You can easily direct your emotional states by changing your posture; for example, sit straight, tilt your head, use facial expressions, walk differently, etc. You can also direct your emotional states by holding brighter and more pleasing visual images in mind. You have the choice, but you must make the choice.
Creating Peace of Mind
To create peace within yourself, simply relax your body and breathing; then, direct the mind.
A still body is the reflection of a calm mind, but the mind cannot be still until the body is still.
Begin by making your body comfortable. Then release areas of tension. As example, gentle movements of the neck and shoulder muscles can help stretch and release tension in those areas.
Breathing in an even and steady way will quickly calm both the body and mind. Make the inhale and exhale of equal length without any pauses in between. Your breathing will become smooth and even.
The next step is to quiet the mind. Start by bringing your awareness into this present moment, here and now. By doing this you can effectively eliminate distracting or troubling thoughts. Any anxieties about the future or tensions from the past will leave your mind and body.
Another way to direct the mind is to direct your inner voice–especially if it is anxious or overbearing. Play with the idea of changing the volume of your inner voice. Have it be quieter.
Modify the tone of you inner voice until it is pleasant, warm and nurturing. You can have it say pleasant and comforting words to you—words of encouragement and self esteem. Some people even repeat soothing words or phrases in a rhythmic way.
The final step is to hold images that encourage a peaceful mind. For thousands of years, prayerful and meditative people have directed the mind by holding steady mental pictures. For example, the image of a candle flame can be used to concentrate one’s attention and steady the mind. You can use images of a peaceful scene from nature, a vacation setting, an imaginary room of comfort, a cathedral, rose bushes, or anything calming, wonderful, and peaceful.
What To Do Once You’ve Got There.
Getting to a relaxed state of mind and body by the above steps may take 20-30 minutes at first. With practice, however, you’ll be able to accomplish this within a few minutes.
When you try to extend this peaceful feeling for long periods of time, you may find that your mind will race to other thoughts. After all, your mind is trained to race, to go full throttle, all day long. If you suddenly stop for 20 minutes, will your mind to cooperate? No. It will do what you trained it to do for the 16 hours–race!
So, what’s the solution? How do you create a peace-filled life, and not peaceful three-minute spurts? Take it one moment and one thought at a time. Bring peaceful, serene, and positive images and feelings into the rest of your day. Learn to release tensions as they occur. Learn to direct your thoughts and emotions at the time they start getting out of hand. You’ll discover that not only can you create a peacefulness, but you are living a peace-filled life.
There is a saying that ignorance is bliss. This might be true for some, but it is as far as I am concerned the root cause of most of our suffering, pain and anxiety. Accepting life, people, religion, politics, perceptions, choices, rules and laws at face value imprisoned the mind of mankind. Looking at anything in life from a single perspective is the lazy way out. Seeing and experiencing from a limited range of perspectives have shackled man almost since its inception. Primitive man could not read, write or decipher the range of threats that confronted them and were forced to turn to priests and other individuals for guidance. This disposition provided a wonderful opportunity for those that claimed that they understood to take over control of their followers minds. The initial flimsy net that these opportunists wove gradually grew stronger and more sophisticated.
You will later see how this initial ignorance created an ideal vehicle of enslavement for those in control. Mankind have been kept in a state of ignorance since the beginning of time by greedy power hungry individuals, groups and organizations. Primitive methods of pain, pleasure and hope were used to restrain the masses. Man experienced fleeting moments of pleasure while they blindly obeyed the “commands” of these controllers. Thousands of written laws, spiritual and otherwise came into being over the years. Those that remained subdued and subservient were praised and rewarded while anyone that questioned anything faced the intricate range of pain that these controllers could bring to bear on them. They were cruelly tortured in the dark ages when they questioned anything to do with religion or the state.
Mankind became the slaves of the controllers. They were carefully manipulated to let go of a fair percentage of their hard earned income. The state took their pound of flesh while the religious leaders demanded at least ten percent of all income earned as well. The system sucked in mankind to such an extent that only a handful of individuals over the years showed the courage to point out the deadly trap that we find ourselves in up to today. Do you grasp that the slaves of this system not only police the deadly system on behalf of the controllers, but breed the future slaves that will take over from them when they produce children? I can write a fairly substantial book on this subject matter, but believe that you can see what I am addressing in this document.
My plea is that everyone make it his or her business to get rid of the veil of ignorance that is responsible for most of their anxiety, pain and lack. You might have noticed that I post a very wide range of perceptions daily on an endless range of subjects. My motivation is that I want you to look at stuff from many different perspectives. Nothing is as it seems. I will continue to write on the endless range of methods used to keep us ignorant if I get a fairly acceptable responds on this post.
It is NATURAL to experience UPS AND DOWNS in life. There has never been anyone ever in the history of man that only experienced UP (high) periods in his or her life. Look around you and you will notice that everything presents unique CYCLES. Everyone goes through GROWTH and REDUCTION cycles. It will be crazy to feel like a victim when you experience a DOWN period in any area of your life. You are not in a DOWN period because some kind of punishment is metered out to you. You are not in a DOWNWARD phase because you are a SINNER or because you are INFERIOR in any way. Repeat as often as you can today. It is NATURAL to experience LOW periods in any area of my life. It is NATURAL to experience a general DOWN period as well. See the following image in your head while you repeat these words of wisdom.
My mood was cold, dark, and directionless. My tortured mind was filled with thoughts of missed opportunities and broken promises.
The cutting wind on my unshaven face made my eyes water and drove the dark clouds of depression into my shattered soul.
The years slipped by like fleeting dreams. Moments of joy and victory came and vanished like the waves of the ocean bashed on the black rocks of sadness.
I looked up and noticed the sheets of rain that endlessly poured its gift of life and growth in all directions.
A thought darted into my tired defeated mind. I suddenly noticed how nature shares her abundance with everyone and everything.
Mother Nature is not selective when she sends gifts of rain and sunshine to feed, nourish and rejuvenate everything with a smattering of life at their core.
These gifts of life are given to the seeds that are still sleeping in the soil. The dark scorched earth will soon put on a new coat of colour and in turn pass on these gifts of life to the bees, birds and everything else that waited patiently on Mother Nature to return as she has done since the beginning of time.
I suddenly understood that it is mankind’s inability to give unconditionally that is responsible for the inequality that drips off this planet like black wax from a candle.
Our homes are filled to the brim with stuff, but we want more, better, faster and the latest. Something inside us drives us like a hungry pack of wolves forward in our quest to feed our greedy ego.
There is no time for compassion in our busy lives. Poverty stares at us on every corner, but we are so obsessed with our own little world that we never notice that cold and hungry child on the corner of the street or a mother that worked her hands to the bone to serve us where we sit in our artificial castles sipping our wine of success.
The clouds of gloominess gradually lifted from my bowed shoulders. I knew what Mother Nature came to teach me in this dark night of my soul. She came to teach me about compassion and gratitude. She showed me that I must learn to give unconditionally and abundantly if I want to make a contribution to life on this planet.
I noticed that the sun began to break through the clouds announcing that the rain moved on to go and do some more teaching down the road. A rainbow suddenly appeared on the horizon. I slowly got up, wiped the water from my face, pushed back my shoulders with new hope in my heart against the backdrop of the singing of the birds that were thanking Mother Nature in advance for the new gifts that she will bring the next time she pays us a visit. She will like before pour her gifts on the rich and the poor, on those that have in abundance and those that have virtually nothing. She deposits her gifts on everyone regardless of their status, race or career and knows that a time will come when mankind has evolved enough to grasp that we are one and an extension of her.
We live in the ocean of life. This ocean is saturated with the life-force, energy and memories of every thought man ever dreamt. Your dreams yearn to solidify and come into form. Your dreams and thoughts want to teach you via your experiences. All dreams, negative or positive come into your life to teach you lessons. Your dreams do not want you to become a martyr or victim. Your dreams want you to become the perfect student that learns from all experiences, good or bad. The only way that understanding and wisdom can come into your life is when you get your conditioned mind filled to the brim with perceptions out of the way. You will find it exhilarating when you discover how much you learn and how quickly you grow when you begin to view every experience as a lesson to be learned.
We think that our perpetrators need to learn the lessons when they injure us with their deeds and tongues. Let them learn their own lessons. Be bold enough to see if you can uncover the lessons in your own adversities. You are the cause of everything that enters your tiny world. You place the orders and the universe delivers the goods. The amazing thing is that we will repeat the same painful experiences for decades and never attempt to uncover our lessons. Nothing is going to change until you change your thinking and dreaming. Your teacher is in you and will guide you to experience certain things until you learn your lesson. These teachings are not presented to you in a vindictive manner by your teacher. We are quick to look for the lessons that we hope others will learn when they hurt us, but never become still and ask what is there that we need to master.
Your teacher want to show you your true potential and how amazing you really are, but you turn a blind eye to his lectures and fail to see the hundreds of signs that he provides you with on any given day. You will also run into the teachers of those that you come in contact with. You might be at the receiving end of one of the lessons that they are teaching one of their students It is important to know that we often learn our most fruitful lessons while we participate in the actions and activities of others students of life. Wisdom is to learn from our lessons and to store our insights and wisdom in our experience bank. The fool is hammered by lessons everyday. He fails to gain insight or wisdom during the process and go around blaming everybody including God for his lack and self-made misery.
Let your life be your teacher and allow your teacher within to teach others by the good example that you set. Many of us want to go on crusades in an attempt to change the world. Our mission is not to change the physical world of illusion out there, but to create perfection in our internal world that is also an extension of God. A bird in a tree can teach you more about God than many hours of lectures based on dogma. Be gentle with others and remember that they are students just like you. They might not be at the same level than you currently and could learn valuable lessons by the way you conduct yourself. You must also be gentle and patient with yourself. The teacher in you does not expect you to get it right the first time, every time. The teacher in you will guide you in love and understanding.
There is no evil. Evil is just the starting point of a lesson unfolding. Evil thoughts dissipate in the light of patience and persistence. Love is the universal fuel that drives the universe. You will discover that the most beautiful flower sometimes grow in the darkest mud.
1. A child reared without clear boundaries has little chance of success. Limits are necessary to give purpose, direction and structure to life. The fool swims in a boundless sea of opportunity and finally drowns because of his failure to latch onto a specific purpose. He tries to own the sea while the wise man selects a single purpose (opportunity/goal) and then pursue it with all his heart. The wise man understands the power of commitment and focused thought and is well rewarded.
2. A defeated person becomes indifferent about his fate. He finally stops feeling ashamed or sorry. He stops resisting and fighting to reclaim his dignity. The wise is very aware that passive behaviour could make him act like a dog with a broken spirit. Our parks are filled with defeated individuals that tragically accepted their fate in life.
3. A desperate or worried person displays the tendency to cling to anything or anyone that displays even slight compassion. A true warrior understands that this behaviour will eventually exhaust the person that he clings to. A champion never makes panic decisions or choices. He lives in the moment and knows that his winter season will pass like so many times before and make way for a brand new summer.
4. A few moments of indiscretion could become a burden that you might haunt you for the rest of your life. The need for instant gratification is usually at the root of most of our less spectacular choices. Any choice that we make can be compared to the pull of a trigger on a gun. Once the bullet leaves the barrel it cannot be recalled.
5. A good friend is like a good investment. To make good longterm friends be a friend. Friends become a shield in troubled times. Friendship is not a one-sided deal. There are people that claim that they are your friends, but they are often just stranger exploiting you. Several of the friends you make during your lifetime will stick a knife in your back the first time your friendship is really tested.
6. A grievance poisons your mind and chains you to the past. It leaves you bitter and twisted. Everyday of your life you chose between grievances and freedom. You must make up your mind if you want “pain” or “joy” or the “old” or the “new”. When you choose to go for freedom then learning the art of letting go becomes a top priority. When you have mastered the art of letting go of your history you begin to predominantly live in the now.
7. A man that cannot find enough compassion in his heart to forgive is a fool. We all make mistakes, but the fool continues trying to convince everybody that he is flawless. When you master the art of forgiveness you enter a safe harbour and gain peace of mind.
8. A man that is mature, fair and respectable is worth more than precious jewellery. Everybody respects maturity and predictability. Wisdom only comes to those that are slow to anger and careful in their judgement.
9. A man that lacks self-esteem needs titles and certificates to justify his position in life. A man at peace with who he is does not need the constant blessing or praise of others. Never allow a person’s title or position to intimidate or dominate you. See yourself on equal footing with others. Do not allow a person to intimidate you with his pedigree or current superior vantage point.
10. A man with willpower always has the best chance of coming out on top. The main reason why people fail is not because they do not have the skills and know-how, but because they lack the willpower. A person without willpower and determination always ends up the slave of those that do.
Rene
(from my book – PORTABLE LIFE SKILLS WISDOM GUIDE)
This grandfather of all people-skills books was first published in 1937. It was an overnight hit, eventually selling 15 million copies. How to Win Friends and Influence People is just as useful today as it was when it was first published, because Dale Carnegie had an understanding of human nature that will never be outdated. Financial success, Carnegie believed, is due 15 percent to professional knowledge and 85 percent to “the ability to express ideas, to assume leadership, and to arouse enthusiasm among people.” He teaches these skills through underlying principles of dealing with people so that they feel important and appreciated. He also emphasizes fundamental techniques for handling people without making them feel manipulated. Carnegie says you can make someone want to do what you want them to by seeing the situation from the other person’s point of view and “arousing in the other person an eager want.” You learn how to make people like you, win people over to your way of thinking, and change people without causing offence or arousing resentment. For instance, “let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers,” and “talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.” Carnegie illustrates his points with anecdotes of historical figures, leaders of the business world, and everyday folks.
The first self-help book I ever read was “How to win friends and influence people” by Dale Carnegie. I just finished school and was looking for an inspirational book in a tiny, poorly stocked book store in Windhoek in Namibia. I came across Dale Carnegie’s book in the scant selection of books on a shelf right at the back of this dusty store. I unashamedly admit today that although this was the first “motivational” book that I ever owned when it still remains one of the top ten books I ever read when it came to practical advice regarding people skills. Many of you might have read the book or still have a copy on a shelf in your library. I would suggest that you read it again. It will refresh your memory on one of the most important principles when it comes to compassion. It will remind you that you can make more progress in all areas of your life if you develop a sincere interest in others. Dale indicates in this book that you can make more friends in two months by developing an awareness of the interests of others than you could achieve in two years using any other method.
We live in small boxes today surrounded by massive walls to keep intruders out that might dare to enter our comfort zones. We shout at each other over these walls and only on very rare occasions lower our draw bridge and venture out or invite anyone into our domain. Most of us go around with our defence shield up and remain on guard twenty four hours a day. The political climate that we live and work in might also have something to do with this unhealthy behaviour. We need to open up and become more vulnerable if we want to escape the deadly ruts that many of us fell in over the years. Some of us feel lonely and need friends, companionship and fun, but we often forgo on these desires because of our fears and warped self-interest. Everything revolves around us and our own dreams, desires and choices. We look at life, people and places through a self-interest one way mirrors. Our interests always come first and the interests of others never really feature at all. We have this “What is in it for me” attitudes that fail to address the needs of anyone else.
When last did you manage to get yourself out of the way long enough to listen and experience any human being, family member or friend with an open mind? Many of us developed a sick habit of judging everyone. We endlessly scan people for flaws or potential threats. We fail to listen to them when they talk. We listen to the first few words of their sentences and then jump to conclusions. We look at people through eyes that fail to see the pain or desperation in them. We listen to what people say and fail to read the subliminal call for help that they are possibly to proud or ashamed to express. Do we care enough to really hear what our partner or children are telling us? Are we alert enough to feel the emotions of the person that we are communicating with? I think we all of us might have some work to do when it comes to mastering the art of putting the interest of others first.
When last did you compliment anyone on anything? We as parents tend to only give attention to our children when they are sick or when they did something wrong. We as partners only become interested enough when our relationships begin to fall apart. We fail to notice the cracks and peeling paint in our relationships. We are so busy with our own agendas, self-interests and objectives that the pain and frustration experienced by our partner bounces off our egotistical shield. Can you see what major difference a shift in attention can make in your life? Can you accept that life is not only about you and your plans and goals? Can you understand that the formula for success is that your success if virtually guaranteed if you help enough other people to achieve their own goals and dreams?
So I suggest that you shut up the next time anyone talk to you and listen carefully what is said and what is not expressed verbally. God supplied you with two ears and one mouth. You must listen more and talk less. Put yourself in others’ shoes and ask yourself if you really know the story of the person that you are talking to. Stop jumping to conclusions and stop judging people on hearsay and second hand data. Stop forcing people to communicate to you through their history. Start each day with a new clean slate. We have so many prejudices and perceptions about everything that is cast in stone that it became impossible to see thing as they are in the moment. Set yourself free by putting the interest of others first for a while.
As Maria Robinson once said, “Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.”
Nothing could be closer to the truth. But before you can begin this process of transformation you have to stop doing the things that have been holding you back.
Here are some ideas to get you started:
1. Stop spending time with the wrong people. Life is too short to spend time with people who suck the happiness out of you. If someone wants you in their life, they’ll make room for you. You shouldn’t have to fight for a spot. Never, ever insist yourself to someone who continuously overlooks your worth. And remember, it’s not the people that stand by your side when you’re at your best, but the ones who stand beside you when you’re at your worst that are your true friends.
2. Stop running from your problems. Face them head on. No, it won’t be easy. There is no person in the world capable of flawlessly handling every punch thrown at them. We aren’t supposed to be able to instantly solve problems. That’s not how we’re made. In fact, we’re made to get upset, sad, hurt, stumble and fall. Because that’s the whole purpose of living to face problems, learn, adapt, and solve them over the course of time. This is what ultimately molds us into the person we become.
3. Stop lying to yourself. You can lie to anyone else in the world, but you can’t lie to yourself. Our lives improve only when we take chances, and the first and most difficult chance we can take is to be honest with ourselves. Read The Road Less Traveled.
4. Stop putting your own needs on the back burner.The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too. Yes, help others; but help yourself too. If there was ever a moment to follow your passion and do something that matters to you, that moment is now.
5. Stop trying to be someone you’re not. One of the greatest challenges in life is being yourself in a world that’s trying to make you like everyone else. Someone will always be prettier, someone will always be smarter, someone will always be younger, but they will never be you. Don’t change so people will like you. Be yourself and the right people will love the real you.
6. Stop trying to hold onto the past. You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading your last one.
7. Stop being scared to make a mistake. Doing something and getting it wrong is at least ten times more productive than doing nothing. Every success has a trail of failures behind it, and every failure is leading towards success. You end up regretting the things you did NOT do far more than the things you did.
8. Stop berating yourself for old mistakes. We may love the wrong person and cry about the wrong things, but no matter how things go wrong, one thing is for sure, mistakes help us find the person and things that are right for us. We all make mistakes, have struggles, and even regret things in our past. But you are not your mistakes, you are not your struggles, and you are here NOW with the power to shape your day and your future. Every single thing that has ever happened in your life is preparing you for a moment that is yet to come.
9. Stop trying to buy happiness. Many of the things we desire are expensive. But the truth is, the things that really satisfy us are totally free love, laughter and working on our passions.
10. Stop exclusively looking to others for happiness.If you’re not happy with who you are on the inside, you won’t be happy in a long-term relationship with anyone else either. You have to create stability in your own life first before you can share it with someone else. Read Stumbling on Happiness.
11. Stop being idle. Don’t think too much or you’ll create a problem that wasn’t even there in the first place. Evaluate situations and take decisive action. You cannot change what you refuse to confront. Making progress involves risk. Period! You can’t make it to second base with your foot on first.
12. Stop thinking you’re not ready. Nobody ever feels 100% ready when an opportunity arises. Because most great opportunities in life force us to grow beyond our comfort zones, which means we won’t feel totally comfortable at first.
13. Stop getting involved in relationships for the wrong reasons. Relationships must be chosen wisely. It’s better to be alone than to be in bad company. There’s no need to rush. If something is meant to be, it will happen in the right time, with the right person, and for the best reason. Fall in love when you’re ready, not when you’re lonely.
14. Stop rejecting new relationships just because old ones didn’t work. In life you’ll realize that there is a purpose for everyone you meet. Some will test you, some will use you and some will teach you. But most importantly, some will bring out the best in you.
15. Stop trying to compete against everyone else.Don’t worry about what others doing better than you. Concentrate on beating your own records every day. Success is a battle between YOU and YOURSELF only.
16. Stop being jealous of others. Jealousy is the art of counting someone else’s blessings instead of your own. Ask yourself this: “What’s something I have that everyone wants?”
17. Stop complaining and feeling sorry for yourself. Life’s curveballs are thrown for a reason to shift your path in a direction that is meant for you. You may not see or understand everything the moment it happens, and it may be tough. But reflect back on those negative curveballs thrown at you in the past. You’ll often see that eventually they led you to a better place, person, state of mind, or situation. So smile! Let everyone know that today you are a lot stronger than you were yesterday, and you will be.
18. Stop holding grudges. Don’t live your life with hate in your heart. You will end up hurting yourself more than the people you hate. Forgiveness is not saying, “What you did to me is okay.” It is saying, “I’m not going to let what you did to me ruin my happiness forever.” Forgiveness is the answer… let go, find peace, liberate yourself! And remember, forgiveness is not just for other people, it’s for you too. If you must, forgive yourself, move on and try to do better next time.
19. Stop letting others bring you down to their level.Refuse to lower your standards to accommodate those who refuse to raise theirs.
20. Stop wasting time explaining yourself to others.Your friends don’t need it and your enemies won’t believe it anyway. Just do what you know in your heart is right.
21. Stop doing the same things over and over without taking a break. The time to take a deep breath is when you don’t have time for it. If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting. Sometimes you need to distance yourself to see things clearly.
22. Stop overlooking the beauty of small moments.Enjoy the little things, because one day you may look back and discover they were the big things. The best portion of your life will be the small, nameless moments you spend smiling with someone who matters to you.
23. Stop trying to make things perfect. The real world doesn’t reward perfectionists, it rewards people who get things done. Read Getting Things Done.
24. Stop following the path of least resistance. Life is not easy, especially when you plan on achieving something worthwhile. Don’t take the easy way out. Do something extraordinary.
25. Stop acting like everything is fine if it isn’t. It’s okay to fall apart for a little while. You don’t always have to pretend to be strong, and there is no need to constantly prove that everything is going well. You shouldn’t be concerned with what other people are thinking either cry if you need to it’s healthy to shed your tears. The sooner you do, the sooner you will be able to smile again.
26. Stop blaming others for your troubles. The extent to which you can achieve your dreams depends on the extent to which you take responsibility for your life. When you blame others for what you’re going through, you deny responsibility you give others power over that part of your life.
27. Stop trying to be everything to everyone. Doing so is impossible, and trying will only burn you out. But making one person smile CAN change the world. Maybe not the whole world, but their world. So narrow your focus.
28. Stop worrying so much. Worry will not strip tomorrow of its burdens, it will strip today of its joy. One way to check if something is worth mulling over is to ask yourself this question: “Will this matter in one year’s time? Three years? Five years?” If not, then it’s not worth worrying about.
29. Stop focusing on what you don’t want to happen. Focus on what you do want to happen. Positive thinking is at the forefront of every great success story. If you awake every morning with the thought that something wonderful will happen in your life today, and you pay close attention, you’ll often find that you’re right.
30. Stop being ungrateful. No matter how good or bad you have it, wake up each day thankful for your life. Someone somewhere else is desperately fighting for theirs. Instead of thinking about what you’re missing, try thinking about what you have that everyone else is missing.
What I am going to reveal to you today will change your life if you grasp how the “system” turned you into a “slave”. I have been writing and lecturing on motivation, manifestation and goal setting etc. for many years. I wrote several books that address many of the aspects mentioned above. I spoke boldly to an endless number of audiences and became a “mind dynamics” instructor at a very young age. Something that bothered me was that I noticed that the audience’s “enthusiasm” bubble always gradually deflated soon after such lectures. Virtually none of the tools that I offered my inspired audience was used for any extensive period. I could motivate an audience to such an extent that I often found individuals left my lectures early to go and attend to something that he/she procrastinated on for years. I later soothed my conscience and viewed my “work” on the same level of an entertainer. I entertained my audience for a while and at the end of the evening left with a substantial cheque in my pocket. It slowly dawned on me that something was blocking the ability of my students to sustain the spark that I provided during my training and my lectures. It would appear as if I woke up a large percentage of my audience with my lectures. I penetrated some kind of veil that enveloped their ability to think outside the box. It would appear as if a barrier lifted for a while only to gradually sink back and shut off their good intentions.
Most people have a sheep “I am a victim” mentality
We have been programmed since early childhood to “follow”. Our parents began the process and “domesticated” us to do what they deemed is right and acceptable. Gradually more and more parental figures entered our lives and reinforced the “follower” mode of thinking. We were conditioned that “following” is respectable, rewarding, morally the right thing to do. Look around you today and you will be surprised how many “controllers” still play a massive role in your life. The work started by our parents was soon expanded on by teachers, ministers, the state, employers, lovers, partners, the media etc. All of them still influence every decision we make. We always first filter every situation, challenge, opportunity, problem or project through the “filter system” that they carefully installed into our brains. Spontaneous actions and reactions hardly ever form part of our life pattern. We might think that we have “free will” but we soon discover that the deduction we made is nothing more than an illusion.
Our subconscious mind
Our subconscious mind contains all the events that we have been exposed to since our arrival on this plane. The subconscious mind is a very fancy filing system that can recall all the feelings, emotions and images that formed part of our encounters in life. Any of these “data” packages can be recalled when “triggered” by our thoughts or any of our five senses. Most of us automatically and spontaneously react and respond with the same reaction patterns recorded historically. It must be kept in mind that the data (reaction patterns) have been “uploaded” by the parental figures as explained earlier. We thus endlessly repeat the same patterns when confronted with choices and decisions. Our subconscious minds do not validate or evaluate the historical perceptions or belief systems, but simply pass it on to our conscious minds as “truth”.
Our conscious mind
Our conscious mind should preferably compare the current set of circumstances that we are faced with, with the reality of the current moment before any action is taken. We unfortunately have been browbeaten into robot like creatures that simply react or act according to the historical thoughts and feelings that we experienced when faced historically with a similar set of circumstances. We are so afraid of potential pain or loss that very few of us dare to question our historical perceptions. This is the reason why I noted earlier that most of us do not really apply free will when faced with choices. It is sad to think that we became slaves to our perceptions and belief systems. Very few of us apply “will power” in all our day-to-day activities. A good question at this stage might be, “Why on earth do we neglect this powerful system?” The reason might surprise you.
We try to avoid pain, loss, rejection and abandonment.
We are so afraid to act outside the framework that we have been indoctrinated with that we rather do our “repeat performances” while at work or play. We mentally run away from any decision that might bring on feelings of fear, pain, unpredictability, loss and anxiety. We will rather remain the puppet of our subconscious mind and serve the agendas of those that initially uploaded our original “software” than go outside the box. My friend this is how we travel from the cradle to the grave in a hypnotic daze. The time has come for us to take our willpower back and experience real growth. This is easier set than done while we go around with our “victim” mentality. Many of us go around crying over spilled milk. We allow the daily events that we are confronted with to decide our fate and future. We enter a new growth phase when we begin to apply our God given willpower in our lives. This leap of faith is only possible when we start accepting responsibility for all our actions and choices.
Accepting responsibility
Many of us immediately look for something or someone to blame when things go wrong in our lives. We blame God, the weather, history, the current financial depression or recession for things that failed to work out as expected. Nothing is going to change until you accept that you were and still are responsible for everything in your life. You possibly made poor choices and now sit with certain uncomfortable outcomes. You will feel a rush of fresh energy in your system when you take responsibility for whatever transpired. You will feel invigorated when you admit your mistakes and take sustained action to rectify what transpired. Let the fear, doubt or anxiety wash over you. Become like a rock that withstands the onslaughts of the endless waves of the ocean. Stop thinking and acting like a victim. Stop blaming the world for your poor choices or for that matter anything that failed to turn out as you expected. Learn that life is not fair and that things often fail to work out the way you anticipated. This mode of thinking drains your energy and suck out your desire to win and overcome. When you begin to flex your willpower muscles, you become strong and fearless. You do not wait for things to happen. You make them happen. You begin to replace the old and often defective software that historically enslaved you. Nobody will be able to intimidate or dominate you. Try as they may they will no longer trigger old and outdated fear reactions in your heart and mind.
The key to a powerful willpower
The key is so simple that many of you might not even try my recommendations. The key is to PAUSE before you take action or react on anything. By pausing, you prevent the old and outdated habitual reaction patterns to run their course. Do not do the first thing that comes to mind. You might ask, “How will I know that I am on the verge of slipping back into the victim mode again?” A quick scan of the emotions that you experience will confirm that you are on the verge of victimhood again. You are back in victim mode when you experience doubt, fear, worry and anxiety. Your guide is always the feelings that you experience. You are in control when you experience good, pleasant, inspirational feelings. Your subconscious “automatic” reaction patterns are in control when you experience fear, anxiety, doubt, anger or any other negative and destructive feeling. The key is to PAUSE the moment you experience any negative feelings.
Ask the following questions. (Write down your answers)
Who is currently in control, my sub-conscious mind (historical reaction patterns) or my conscious mind (willpower)?
Am I at this moment in time mentally past (sub-conscious mind) focused or am I evaluating the current moment on its own merit (conscious mind, will power) focused in the now?
Who am I blaming for my current misfortune? (Someone or something else)
Am I busy flooding my mind with negative and destructive (sub-conscious mind) fears based on my historical perceptions or belief system?
What will happen if I decide to PAUSE for a moment and take no action?
What will happen if I do the first thing that comes to mind?
What is the quality of the conversations that I have with myself at this moment? (Negative – sub-conscious mind based or positive – reality based)
What will happen if I accept responsibility and start working on ways to remedy, repair, adjust or overcome the current problem?
What will happen if I stop listening to people that go around like prophets of doom? (Friends, family, media, TV,)
What is the worst that can happen if I apply willpower and move forward in a bold and constructive manner?
What is the worst thing that can happen if I make a fresh start right now and put whatever happened behind me? (Live in the past with a victim mentality – sub-conscious mind running the show)
Replacing old and outdated reaction patterns
The easy and most effective way to replace old and outdated reaction patterns is to sit back, close your eyes for a moment and relax.
See in your mind’s eye how your current victim mentality is stripping you of your dignity and creativity. Feel the negative and destructive feelings that are currently causing you discomfort.
Ask yourself – how is your current defeatist mentality making things better or solving your current problem?
Focus on these feelings and negative emotions for a few minutes and then mentally or verbally (if possible) firmly say, “PAUSE”. Do this with a commanding voice. Repeat this PAUSE instruction a few times if necessary.
Take a few deep breaths and then do the following.
Begin to visualise how you start acting in a decisive and goal directed manner. Feel how strong and in control you feel while your problems and obstacles dissolve like melting butter. Experience how your willpower kicks in and how it blows away all your feelings of fear and doubt. See how you take sustained action until the problem is solved or the project is completed.
You will be astounded how this short and dynamic exercise will produce outcomes that exceed all your expectations. Your new and decisive way of thinking and acting will sweep away barriers and hand you control of situations where you would have failed historically.
I am wishing you well and know that the above new way of thinking will make a massive difference in all areas of your life.
1. A child reared without clear boundaries has little chance of success. Limits are necessary to give purpose, direction and structure to life. The fool swims in a boundless sea of opportunity and finally drowns because of his failure to latch onto a specific purpose. He tries to own the sea while the wise man selects a single purpose (opportunity/goal) and then pursue it with all his heart. The wise man understands the power of commitment and focused thought and is well rewarded.
2. A defeated person becomes indifferent about his fate. He finally stops feeling ashamed or sorry. He stops resisting and fighting to reclaim his dignity. The wise is very aware that passive behaviour could make him act like a dog with a broken spirit. Our parks are filled with defeated individuals that tragically accepted their fate in life.
3. A desperate or worried person displays the tendency to cling to anything or anyone that displays even slight compassion. A true warrior understands that this behaviour will eventually exhaust the person that he clings to. A champion never makes panic decisions or choices. He lives in the moment and knows that his winter season will pass like so many times before and make way for a brand new summer.
4. A few moments of indiscretion could become a burden that you might haunt you for the rest of your life. The need for instant gratification is usually at the root of most of our less spectacular choices. Any choice that we make can be compared to the pull of a trigger on a gun. Once the bullet leaves the barrel it cannot be recalled.
5. A good friend is like a good investment. To make good longterm friends be a friend. Friends become a shield in troubled times. Friendship is not a one-sided deal. There are people that claim that they are your friends, but they are often just stranger exploiting you. Several of the friends you make during your lifetime will stick a knife in your back the first time your friendship is really tested.
6. A grievance poisons your mind and chains you to the past. It leaves you bitter and twisted. Everyday of your life you chose between grievances and freedom. You must make up your mind if you want “pain” or “joy” or the “old” or the “new”. When you choose to go for freedom then learning the art of letting go becomes a top priority. When you have mastered the art of letting go of your history you begin to predominantly live in the now.
7. A man that cannot find enough compassion in his heart to forgive is a fool. We all make mistakes, but the fool continues trying to convince everybody that he is flawless. When you master the art of forgiveness you enter a safe harbour and gain peace of mind.
8. A man that is mature, fair and respectable is worth more than precious jewellery. Everybody respects maturity and predictability. Wisdom only comes to those that are slow to anger and careful in their judgement.
9. A man that lacks self-esteem needs titles and certificates to justify his position in life. A man at peace with who he is does not need the constant blessing or praise of others. Never allow a person’s title or position to intimidate or dominate you. See yourself on equal footing with others. Do not allow a person to intimidate you with his pedigree or current superior vantage point.
10. A man with willpower always has the best chance of coming out on top. The main reason why people fail is not because they do not have the skills and know-how, but because they lack the willpower. A person without willpower and determination always ends up the slave of those that do.
What would the implications be if we discovered that God want or need nothing from nobody? I know some of the readers may experience feelings of anxiety, fear, anger or even panic when they attempt to contemplate what might look like a preposterous statement far removed from the historical “God perceptions” that we grew up with. What would have happened to mankind if they discovered a long time ago that God actually never needed or expected anything from anyone?
Would there have been any meaningful theology?
Would there have been any churches?
Would there have been the endless number of religions and spiritual movements with all their individual dogmas?
Would there have been the ongoing love – fear relationships that many still experience today when they think of the God concept promoted by their church?
Would there have been fear of death, hell and Satan?
Would there have been fear of old age?
Would there have been the religious wars where many millions were killed in the name of various Gods?
Would there have been a Roman Catholic, Christian and a Muslim Movements that boast with billions of followers?
The reason why many of us still insist that God have always had strict requirements is because in some peculiar way it provides us with a sense of worthiness. Some might even reason that they will have to become atheists if they bought into the idea that God needs nothing from nobody. The idea never cross their mind that most of the God perceptions that they cling to were planted in their heads when still very young.
Churches, clergy, priests, emperors, kings etc. worked themselves into a very powerful and influential position by claiming that they are the earthly representatives of some or other God. They revealed hundreds of laws, rules, regulations and expectations that the God according to their perception of Him insist that must be enforced to make Him happy and assist Him to remain composed and not lose His cool. The prescriptions were always linked to dire warnings that, if ignored or not address to the letter would result in serious punishment in the near future or in some kind of afterlife. These warning included predictions of death, destruction, famine, droughts and hardship. These predictions were initially enough to control their followers and keep them subservient. It later became necessary to turn up the heat regarding God’s expectations and needs. This is where those that thought that they might get away with disobedience to God’s commands (like totally wiping out a so-called pagan nation) discovered that God also have a record keeping system and a court of law in heaven that is waiting for those that failed to fulfil the stipulated requirements when they die . The concept of Hell and everlasting damnation after death tightened the screws of control to a level where most in a sheep like manner remain loyal to the church.
The endless laws, rules and regulations continued to flow from God through so-called inspired individuals until Constantine decided to collate a book (The Bible). All the mystical inspired chats between God and the authors suddenly dried up. Not a single person according to this philosophy have been inspire after this event. God vanished from the stage of life and apparently retreated to his heavenly abode. The clergy however kept churning out endless often self-serving commands by interpreting the historical laws and commandments and in this manner kept the upper hand, power and money flowing.
Stop for a moment and think about the statements that I made above. Let us play for a moment with the idea that God never demanded anything from anyone. What would the implications be if man made Gods for themselves in their own image? What would the implications be if the depictions of the Gods were wrong and that God never insisted on the endless range of requirements now cast in stone in their Holy Books? What if the real God (life force) never meddled with man and allowed each individual to work out his own fate and future on a moment to moment basis with the choices he or she make? What if God gave man free will to make any choice and never metered out any punishment, but like a good parent allows His now physically mature children to learn via their own mistakes? Do not reject this option. Think about it for a moment and you will discover that a million and one things that might have bothered you about your current God concept now suddenly fall into place.
There is a saying that ignorance is bliss. This might be true for some, but it is as far as I am concerned the root cause of most of our suffering, pain and anxiety. Accepting life, people, religion, politics, perceptions, choices, rules and laws at face value imprisoned the mind of mankind. Looking at anything in life from a single perspective is the lazy way out. Seeing and experiencing from a limited range of perspectives have shackled man almost since its inception. Primitive man could not read, write or decipher the range of threats that confronted them and were forced to turn to priests and other individuals for guidance. This disposition provided a wonderful opportunity for those that claimed that they understood to take over control of their followers minds. The initial flimsy net that these opportunists wove gradually grew stronger and more sophisticated.
You will later see how this initial ignorance created an ideal vehicle of enslavement for those in control. Mankind have been kept in a state of ignorance since the beginning of time by greedy power hungry individuals, groups and organizations. Primitive methods of pain, pleasure and hope were used to restrain the masses. Man experienced fleeting moments of pleasure while they blindly obeyed the “commands” of these controllers. Thousands of written laws, spiritual and otherwise came into being over the years. Those that remained subdued and subservient were praised and rewarded while anyone that questioned anything faced the intricate range of pain that these controllers could bring to bear on them. They were cruelly tortured in the dark ages when they questioned anything to do with religion or the state.
Mankind became the slaves of the controllers. They were carefully manipulated to let go of a fair percentage of their hard earned income. The state took their pound of flesh while the religious leaders demanded at least ten percent of all income earned as well. The system sucked in mankind to such an extent that only a handful of individuals over the years showed the courage to point out the deadly trap that we find ourselves in up to today. Do you grasp that the slaves of this system not only police the deadly system on behalf of the controllers, but breed their future slaves when they produce children? I can write a fairly substantial book on this subject matter, but believe that you can see what I am addressing in this document.
My plea is that everyone make it his or her business to get rid of the veil of ignorance that is responsible for most of their anxiety, pain and lack. You might have noticed that I post a very wide range of perceptions daily on an endless range of subjects. My motivation is that I want you to look at stuff from many different perspectives. Nothing is as it seems. I will continue to write on the endless range of methods used to keep us ignorant if I get a fairly acceptable responds on this post.
If you ask me what is the biggest discovery that I made during my endless years of research on the reason why we fail I would boldly state the following:
It is a myth that we are the victims of our history. This myth tends to put us in a perpetual hypnotised, victim state. We walk, talk, act and react according to the filters that we look through while playing the game of life. Most of us are on auto-pilot and automatically act and react in the manner dictated to us according to our mindset on the matter at hand. We cringe and we cry or dance in elation according to the historical scripts that we adopted since early childhood. The world became our stage. We endlessly repeat our little dramas and hardly ever think that there might be better alternatives if we STOP for a moment and look at the CURRENT moment in an OBJECTIVE and COMPOSED manner.
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They cannot spring to life without our activation. They cannot make us sad or depressed until we send the signal via our thoughts that trigger them to life. The amazing thing for many of us must be the ability of these historical pictures, when activated to force us to once more look at the blood, wounds and feelings of disaster that we experienced during the birth of these experiences. It is impossible to remain composed, in control or positive while we allow these strings of historical data to contaminate our CURRENT moments.
Did you know that time is an illusion. The only time that is REAL is this very MOMENT. Nothing that happened HISTORICALLY or that might happen in the FUTURE can contaminate your current moment without your permission. No horror movies can play on the screen of your mind until you upload a single or series of historical data packages from your sub-conscious minds. You cannot manage your life or a specific moment on MERIT while you remain in AUTO-PLAY. How can you be brave when you constantly allow your historical horror movies to scare the living shit out of you? It is a simple as that. You can never escape your current circumstances (financial, relationship etc.) while you continuously work with old and often outdated blueprints.
This nasty habit is causing billions to stagger out of bed each day and repeat the same old cycles and rituals like slaves. They dance the same old monotonous dance and hope that something or someone will bring some joy or luck into their grey and uninteresting lives. They yearn for love, friendship, joy, prosperity or success, but fail to understand that it is impossible to manifest anything that falls outside of our current or habitual mindsets.
You have something called will-power. You can take your power back today. You make hundred of choices every hour. You can decide that you are going to get off your chair or bed right now and confront each moment in an objective and positive manner. You can decide that acting like a puppet or a slave is no longer fun. You can kick adversity in the balls and challenge those that cause you discomfort to “bring it on”. Can you see that you can become objective, strong, loving and fun to be with if you stop the tendency to allow your history to dictate each and every moment in your life? You can become productive and efficient right now if you PAUSE for a moment before you act or react. The key is the choices you make. What you do, think or fail to do will manifest tomorrow, next week and next year.
Draw a line in the sand today, right now and take your power back. Be brave and make decisions even if the outcomes might not be what you anticipated. You can always make new decisions and make adjustments to your new flight plan. Decide today that you are going to LIVE until you DIE. It is easy when you understand that all you need to do is to manage your CURRENT MOMENT.
1. A child reared without clear boundaries has little chance of success. Limits are necessary to give purpose, direction and structure to life. The fool swims in a boundless sea of opportunity and finally drowns because of his failure to latch onto a specific purpose. He tries to own the sea while the wise man selects a single purpose (opportunity/goal) and then pursue it with all his heart. The wise man understands the power of commitment and focused thought and is well rewarded.
2. A defeated person becomes indifferent about his fate. He finally stops feeling ashamed or sorry. He stops resisting and fighting to reclaim his dignity. The wise is very aware that passive behaviour could make him act like a dog with a broken spirit. Our parks are filled with defeated individuals that tragically accepted their fate in life.
3. A desperate or worried person displays the tendency to cling to anything or anyone that displays even slight compassion. A true warrior understands that this behaviour will eventually exhaust the person that he clings to. A champion never makes panic decisions or choices. He lives in the moment and knows that his winter season will pass like so many times before and make way for a brand new summer.
4. A few moments of indiscretion could become a burden that you might haunt you for the rest of your life. The need for instant gratification is usually at the root of most of our less spectacular choices. Any choice that we make can be compared to the pull of a trigger on a gun. Once the bullet leaves the barrel it cannot be recalled.
5. A good friend is like a good investment. To make good longterm friends be a friend. Friends become a shield in troubled times. Friendship is not a one-sided deal. There are people that claim that they are your friends, but they are often just stranger exploiting you. Several of the friends you make during your lifetime will stick a knife in your back the first time your friendship is really tested.
6. A grievance poisons your mind and chains you to the past. It leaves you bitter and twisted. Everyday of your life you chose between grievances and freedom. You must make up your mind if you want “pain” or “joy” or the “old” or the “new”. When you choose to go for freedom then learning the art of letting go becomes a top priority. When you have mastered the art of letting go of your history you begin to predominantly live in the now.
7. A man that cannot find enough compassion in his heart to forgive is a fool. We all make mistakes, but the fool continues trying to convince everybody that he is flawless. When you master the art of forgiveness you enter a safe harbour and gain peace of mind.
8. A man that is mature, fair and respectable is worth more than precious jewellery. Everybody respects maturity and predictability. Wisdom only comes to those that are slow to anger and careful in their judgement.
9. A man that lacks self-esteem needs titles and certificates to justify his position in life. A man at peace with who he is does not need the constant blessing or praise of others. Never allow a person’s title or position to intimidate or dominate you. See yourself on equal footing with others. Do not allow a person to intimidate you with his pedigree or current superior vantage point.
10. A man with willpower always has the best chance of coming out on top. The main reason why people fail is not because they do not have the skills and know-how, but because they lack the willpower. A person without willpower and determination always ends up the slave of those that do.
This may come as a bold statement for many, yet it is the absolute truth. In almost any situation we find ourselves, we can choose to be happy if we want to. Obviously, this is more difficult to do in some situations than in others. For example, if we are in physical pain, it’s very difficult to focus our minds on happiness. And when we are experiencing something pleasurable, happiness almost comes on it’s own.
In our modern world, we rarely experience physical pain. Most of the situations we find ourselves unhappy in are simply situations that don’t meet our expectations. A friend who betrays our trust, a life partner that is dishonest or unfaithful, a boss that is difficult and demanding. These are the types of situations that we can choose to be happy in if we set our mental focus properly.
But how do we find happiness in the midst of these situations? Or, on a more basic level, how do we control our emotions to be what we want them to be? And an even more basic question, why would we want to?
Let’s start with the most basic question, why would we want to control our emotions and make them be something other than those expected?
One of the core principles in the Keys To Power system (and many New Thought systems) is that the Power of Spirit is directed by the thoughts and feelings within us to create our experiences.
This means that when we’re thinking and feeling happy thoughts, Power will be directed to create happy experiences. When we think and feel unhappy thoughts, Power is directed to create unhappy experiences. This ‘Law of Power’ works just as surely and accurately as any other natural Law, such as gravity.
Most people understand the basic concepts here, so I won’t go into detail here. What continually amazes me, however, is the number of people who will agree with the concepts just mentioned, yet will do nothing to implement them into their lives!
But maybe that is because they don’t really know how. Which gets us to the next question, how do we control our emotions to be what we want them to be?
How to Control the Emotions
To get to the answer of that question, we need to understand how the emotions work. Not an easy task, and a full description would take far too much time and space to include here. But in essence, the emotions react to mental stimulus. This means that the combination of our thoughts, beliefs, mental images, and perceptions of the world around us work together to create our emotions.
The sight of a mountain can arouse feelings of pride in one person, and feelings of failure in another. Obviously, the sight of the mountain itself did not create the feelings, or everyone would feel the same way about seeing a mountain. Hearing that the stock market dropped 500 points will make one person feel like the end of the world is at hand, yet make someone else feel that a grand opportunity has arrived. And on a more personal level, finding out that your spouse has engaged in extramarital affairs can be either a blessing or a curse to the relationship, depending on how you look at it.
So, to control our emotions, we need to control the mental stimulus that creates those emotions.
One of the most basic (and most effective) mental stimulus is the judgment that we place on the interpretation of each event. When we judge an event to be bad, our emotional reaction is negative and unhappiness results. If we judge an event to be good, then happiness is much more likely. In many motivational programs, you will find the instruction to label all experiences as good, and then to search for the goodness in the experience. If you lose your job, claim “this is good” and then go about looking for the good in losing your job. It’s usually the opportunity to find a better means of employment.
In other situations, the goodness of the situation is harder to find. For example, someone lies to you and causes you to lose your trust in them. What good is there in that? Maybe it’s an indication that your trust is misplaced and you need to focus elsewhere for truth. Maybe it’s an indication that you’ve allowed an experience to be created (from previous usages of Power) that you don’t like. In this case, it’s an indication that you need to refocus your mind to create what you do want, and not what you don’t want.
And this is the central message here. Your thoughts and feelings are directing Power to create your life experiences. Think about the possibility of dishonesty, or allow yourself to feel that dishonesty is a possibility, and you sow the seeds for a dishonest experience.
I know what you’re probably thinking – “People lie and cheat all the time. How can I possibly NOT think or feel that dishonesty is a possibility? It’s more than a possibility, it’s real!” This is where the principles of the Keys To Power get the most difficult to implement in real life. All I can say is that if you can convince yourself that you will never experience dishonesty, then you won’t. I’m not saying that it’s easy to do, I’m just relaying the principles.
Now let’s get to our first question, how can we find happiness in the midst of unhappy experiences?
Whatever the situation, we need to focus our mind on happy things. Maybe we start to think about other situations other than the one we are currently in. Think about a time when you were tremendously happy. Relive the experience in your mind. Pretend that you are having the same experience right now. Or maybe it’s better to think about how you would like the current situation to end. Imagine that the situation is completely transformed and becomes what you want it to become. Or maybe you only need to focus on the concept that everything will be okay, whether you know how it will end or not.
There’s a story that I like to remember from time to time. There was once a farmer living on a plot of land with his family. This farmer had 2 horses to help him farm his land. And if he worked with those 2 horses from sun up to sun down, he barely made enough to support his family. One day, one of the horses ran away. The farmer’s neighbor, once he found out about it, said “That’s terrible. Now you won’t have what you need to support your family. You’ll surely starve to death.” The farmer replied “Maybe, maybe not.”
The next day, the horse that ran away came back, and brought 2 other horses with it. The farmer’s neighbor happened to be there, and exclaimed jubilantly “This is wonderful! Now you’ll be able to earn much more, and you and your family will live in luxury!” Again, the farmer’s response was “Maybe, maybe not.”
A few days later, one of the farmer’s sons tried to tame one of the wild horses. The horse threw the young boy. When the boy fell, one of his legs was broken. Again the farmer’s neighbor said “That’s terrible!” and again the farmer replied “Maybe, maybe not.”
About a week later, the local militia came around recruiting all available young men. Because the farmer’s son’s leg was broken, they passed by without taking him. Again the farmer’s neighbor said “That’s great!” and again the farmer replied “Maybe, maybe not.”
The basic lesson in this story (which could go on forever), is that you never really know what will happen because of the current event. Even if the situation now is “terrible”, it may be necessary to get to a situation that’s “Great!”
If you ask me what is the biggest discovery that I made during my endless years of research on the reasons why we fail I would boldly state the following:
It is a myth that we are the victims of our history. This myth tends to put us in a perpetual hypnotised, victim state. We walk, talk, act and react according to the filters that we look through while playing the game of life. Most of us are on auto-pilot and automatically act and react in the manner dictated to us according to our mindset on the matter at hand. We cringe and we cry or dance in elation according to the historical scripts that we adopted since early childhood. The world became our stage. We endlessly repeat our little dramas and hardly ever think that there might be better alternatives if we STOP for a moment and look at the CURRENT moment in an OBJECTIVE and COMPOSED manner.
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They cannot spring to life without our activation. They cannot make us sad or depressed until we send the signal via our thoughts that trigger them to life. The amazing thing for many of us must be the ability of these historical pictures, when activated to force us to once more look at the blood, wounds and feelings of disaster that we experienced during the birth of these experiences. It is impossible to remain composed, in control or positive while we allow these strings of historical data to contaminate our CURRENT moments.
Did you know that time is an illusion. The only time that is REAL is this very MOMENT. Nothing that happened HISTORICALLY or that might happen in the FUTURE can contaminate your current moment without your permission. No horror movies can play on the screen of your mind until you upload a single or series of historical data packages from your sub-conscious minds. You cannot manage your life or a specific moment on MERIT while you remain in AUTO-PLAY. How can you be brave when you constantly allow your historical horror movies to scare the living shit out of you? It is a simple as that. You can never escape your current circumstances (financial, relationship etc.) while you continuously work with old and often outdated blueprints.
This nasty habit is causing billions to stagger out of bed each day and repeat the same old cycles and rituals like slaves. They dance the same old monotonous dance and hope that something or someone will bring some joy or luck into their grey and uninteresting lives. They yearn for love, friendship, joy, prosperity or success, but fail to understand that it is impossible to manifest anything that falls outside of our current or habitual mindsets.
You have something called will-power. You can take your power back today. You make hundred of choices every hour. You can decide that you are going to get off your chair or bed right now and confront each moment in an objective and positive manner. You can decide that acting like a puppet or a slave is no longer fun. You can kick adversity in the balls and challenge those that cause you discomfort to “bring it on”. Can you see that you can become objective, strong, loving and fun to be with if you stop the tendency to allow your history to dictate each and every moment in your life? You can become productive and efficient right now if you PAUSE for a moment before you act or react. The key is the choices you make. What you do, think or fail to do will manifest tomorrow, next week and next year.
Draw a line in the sand today, right now and take your power back. Be brave and make decisions even if the outcomes might not be what you anticipated. You can always make new decisions and make adjustments to your new flight plan. Decide today that you are going to LIVE until you DIE. It is easy when you understand that all you need to do is to manage your CURRENT MOMENT.
Most of us FAIL once and then give up. We allow the FEELINGS of DISCOMFORT and DISAPPOINTMENT to paralyze us and STOP us from trying. It is only those that view FAILURES as potential LEARNING experiences that GROW and OVERCOME. Can you see how we allow our historical FEELINGS and FEAR to arrest our potential? Champions compose and reposition themselves until the job is done.
When I started with Rene’s Reading Room I had a vision that I could provide a haven to readers where they can come, sit back and relax while they read and view subject matter that would hopefully uplift, motivate and expand their vision. I diligently expanded on the post data base and in a relative short period of time accumulated over 10 000 posts. I diligently posted articles, clips and even a few book series written by bestselling authors. I often wrote fresh articles or extracted material from my huge data base that I established after many years of writing and lecturing on a wide range of subjects. I invested the time and energy posting this material because I firmly believed that everyone on this planet have the right to be happy, successful and well informed. I challenged the readers to open their minds and look at life, death, religion, work and play from many different perspectives. I gave hundreds if not thousands of lectures during my lifetime and wrote several books and scripts for my audio lectures over the years. I have in the past and will continue to post articles in the Reading Room that will hopefully uplift and challenge visitors to break free from the fixed perspectives that might have been preventing them from being the best they can be at any given moment.
I firmly believe that we are all ONE. We, notwithstanding our differences are all travellers on spaceship earth. We and those that came before us created the collective consciousness that we experience daily. You are a mirror of the collective perceptions that you gathered since your early childhood. Some of us grew up in a Roman Catholic or protestant environment while others in turn grew up in a Muslim home. We call the creator of all universes by different names and perceive this force from many different perspectives. Our insistence that our God is the only true God shattered mankind into tiny vulnerable pieces. We erected walls around our perceptions of God and our understanding of life and death. We were conditioned to perceive life from a “them” and “us” basis. This mindset gradually isolated us into comfort zones with high walls that kept our beliefs in and repelled all other perceptions that fail to match our perceived values. This is how we created our concept of “good” and “evil”. We believed that our God and beliefs are the only truth. Our spiritual leaders ruled the territory behind our high walls and fortified castles with an iron fist. They convinced us that our God is the only God that any other spiritual perception is the work of a fictitious devil. We in our arrogance failed to even attempt to understand or investigate other ideas and perceptions. We were conditioned via guilt, shame and fear from early childhood to reject any data offered by anyone outside our self-proclaimed “perfect” nest.
I will continue to provide many different perceptions on this blog. I am doing this because I concluded after a lifetime of study that we are ONE notwithstanding our walls, boundaries and little the boxes that we hide in. There is only the ONE life force that we live and expire in. We are all on the same path and everyone is following this path to the best of his own ability. We gave this life force many names. Everyone, notwithstanding his current state of consciousness is united with this force. It is an illusion to think that there are a “them” and “us” my friends. This planet is in serious trouble and bleeding profusely from the wounds that we dealt mother earth in our greed for more. We are so divided in our own demarcated zones that we fail to see what we are collectively doing to this place that sustained mankind since inception. We managed to deplete a huge percentage of the vital resources that sustain life on this plane. The time has come for everyone to urgently unite for the collective good of mankind. We need to take urgent action to save us from extension. Mother earth will survive and recover from her wounds, but will we, all seven billion of us still be on spaceship earth as she continues to majestically hurl herself forward on her journey through space?
YOU ARE NEVER STUCK, BLOCKED, IN A RUT – JUST AFRAID!
WHEN YOU FEEL STUCK, THE MIND IS OFTEN PULLING IN TWO DIRECTIONS. PEOPLE THAT ARE STUCK ARE USUALLY BEING HELD BACK BY A RIOT OF SELF-ATTACK AND SELF-DOUBT!
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CONFUSION IS ALIVE AND WELL: From a very young age you often go through periods where you really feel stuck. You want to take control, but often feel that something is holding you back. You want to tell someone how you feel, but cannot find the right words or moment to express your view. You feel cheated and abused, but hold back from “unnecessary” confrontation.
There is millions of relationships that are held together because at least one of the parties is afraid to face reality. There is millions of people that hate their jobs that drag their tired bodies to work everyday because they are to afraid to start over or make waves.
When you get that stuck feeling you will usually discover that you are held back by self-doubt and fear. It is your ego that is holding you back, using your historical doubt and fear to prevent escape or progress.
When you feel stuck you often feel helpless, frustrated, depressed and angry. When you are stuck you have chosen struggle instead of purpose, fear instead of faith, control instead of openness, pride instead of help. When you experience any of the above emotions you should always ask yourself, “What is this stuck feeling trying to tell me?” When you feel stuck your ego is working day and night to write horror scripts for you.
For every potential escape you think of your ego will find examples from your past in an attempt to convince you that your intended action will result in pain and loss. If the ego fails after bombarding you with historical “pain examples” he will create horror images that you could face at some future date if you dared to escape from the stuck zone.
You might be married to a monster that physically and mentally abuse you all the time, but the ego will caution you and remind you of the saying, “Better the Devil you know”.
You might be working for a slaved driver that work you like a mule, but when you want to hand in your resignation you ego will show you videos of people living in cardboard boxes that scrounge for food in dustbins.
Your ego is a master in manipulation and fear. He can write disaster scripts for you game of life that will make wonderful material for a movie. It is fear of failure, loss, disaster, rejection and pain that are binding you in a place where you would rather not be.
You can often see fun, joy, friendship and success a few meters away, but the psychological hold of fear spun around you like a giant spider web keeps you bound in your own personal hell.
They are selling a devise to keep your dogs from straying beyond selected demarcated areas. All you have to do is to fit this device to you dog’s collar and install the invisible parameters that you want it to stay in. When the dog reaches the outer parameters the collar is activated and will induce a painful shock to such dog. After a few attempts the dog “learns” the “safe areas” that he can operate in and will remain in these areas even when the device is switched off. The reminder of the pain when he went outside the “acceptable” parameters is enough to tame even the most stubborn dog.
I am sure you can see that we allow our egos to also keep us locked in by reminding us of past pain and discomfort if we ever dare to contemplate escape from our “discomfort” zone.
“I AM SO CONFUSED” Being stuck often betrays an inner conflict between “yes” and “no”, “want to” and “won’t”, positive intent and fear. The mind is split between what it wants and what it is afraid to have. When you are stuck, the mind is often pulling in two opposing directions.
Have you ever been faced with too many options? When you want to buy a piece of jewellery and they place ten items to choose from in front of you, you usually become confused and often just do not know which one to select. Often when you arrive at a “crossroad” in your journey through life you get stuck there for long periods because you are afraid that you might make the wrong choice.
In selling the salesperson will usually sell you on one specific product and then close the deal by making you choose between the obvious choice and something else. When you select the obvious choice they close the deal. What they have done is get you to make a buying decision by distracting you. A poor salesperson will ask you to chose between ten items and lose the sale.
WHEN YOU FEEL STUCK: When you feel stuck you need to answer the following questions.
· What am I afraid of?
· What am I resisting?
· What am I blocking?
· What am I not being honest about?
· What am I not looking at?
· What am I holding on to?
· What am I not saying?
· What am I not giving?
· What am I refusing to hear?
· What am I punishing myself for?
· What do I want acting in this manner?
Write down your answers to the above questions. The next step is to take action and to prevent your ego to force you back into the “no win” zone. They key here is action and to continue to operate in the now. When you allow your ego to use the past to predict your future you are in a no-win zone. You run on the treadmill of life and get nowhere.
There is no need to remain in this “fear zone” any longer my friend. This is the area where you recycle all your old garbage and foster a friendship with your useless ego. It is a call to let go of the past and unwrap the present. It is a call to give up your ego and step into your true light. The true light continues to shine in the now, where the past is a dreary place with a rotten smell. There is no purpose living in the past or the future.
When you feel that you are stuck it must always be taken as a warning that you are dabbling with garbage again. I discovered that action is a deadly killer of yesterday’s monsters. These monsters feed on your indecision and doubt and will starve to death when you chose action and progress. Your dominating ego will go to sleep and stop dominating you once you have shown him that you are now a person that live in the now. The reoccurring nightmares will come to an end and you life will take on a brand new dimension.
You will never get stuck at the crossroad of life again. You will love change and take back the control of your life that might have been in the hands of the heartless and gutless ego.
Fall down seven times. Stand up eight. (Japanese proverb.)
Resilience is one of the greatest survival skills. It helps you both psychologically and physically in the long-run. While it can’t make your problems go away, it can help you endure any sort of hardship – like traumatic events, loss, illness, disaster, the death of a loved one, or any other setback or challenge.
Resilience is about enlisting your inner strengths, and harnessing your healthy coping mechanisms, so that you keep functioning without getting over-anxious, depressed, overwhelmed or apathetic.
Here are 8 tips to help you learn how to bounce back when some misfortune strikes, or when you are faced with a challenge:
Maintain your hopefulness. Even though the picture may look grim for now, think back to all the challenges that you have encountered and overcome in your life so far, to gain hope and optimism that a solution will be found and remember that any wound, no matter how big it seems right now, will heal in time.
Learn to be more stoical about life. Accept that unwanted events, sudden changes in circumstances are a part of life, and instead of clinging to your belief of how things “ought to be” learn to adapt, tolerate and even welcome your problems. Sometimes, problems are teachers and help us grow and become hardier and wiser.
Take some distance from the event, misfortune or challenge and try to view it as happening to someone else. How would you help that person cope? What would you advise him/her to do? Follow your own advice. There are many angles from which you can view a situation. Taking some distance, becoming an observer rather than a participant may give you the strength but also the problem-solving resources to overcome your challenge. Resilience requires flexibility, not holding onto rigidly to only one point of view.
Reach out to your friends or other support groups. You don’t have to go it alone. A friend’s advice, help or even willing ear or shoulder to cry on may help you re-organize better your inner resources. Feeling connected helps empower people in times of hardship. Offering help to others does the same. Help others in need, you will get empowered as much as they!
Take appropriate action.You don’t have to know the whole solution, you don’t have to examine all the parameters before you take some action in a positive direction. Small steps can help you greatly to feel that you are gaining control of the situation. Play it by ear for a while, test what works and what doesn’t.
Remember to laugh. Every challenge, every misfortune has its comical side. Use humor to lighten up. Think of how comedians can describe a tragic situation in ways that make you laugh. It’s a great coping mechanism, a relaxing break from serious thinking, worrying or grieving.
Don’t neglect yourself. Take good care of your nutrition, sleep, and home environment. Create relaxation time, see friends, do things that please you, like relaxing hobbies, or going to the gym.
Maintain your vision and sense of purpose. Setbacks create havoc, sometimes, emotional upheaval and tend to require all of our attention. We tend to obsess about our problem, as if it’s the only thing going on in our lives. It’s good to continue to keep in mind your long-term personal goals, visions, the things that make your life meaningful and focus back on all these areas that provided joy, hope and a sense of accomplishment before the upsetting event. It will help create a sense of balance in your life.
Finally, remember that “this too shall pass”. Repeating this often to yourself will have a soothing and healing effect and boost your resilience.
YOU ARE NEVER STUCK, BLOCKED, IN A RUT – JUST AFRAID!
WHEN YOU FEEL STUCK, THE MIND IS OFTEN PULLING IN TWO DIRECTIONS. PEOPLE THAT ARE STUCK ARE USUALLY BEING HELD BACK BY A RIOT OF SELF-ATTACK AND SELF-DOUBT!
.
CONFUSION IS ALIVE AND WELL: From a very young age you often go through periods where you really feel stuck. You want to take control, but often feel that something is holding you back. You want to tell someone how you feel, but cannot find the right words or moment to express your view. You feel cheated and abused, but hold back to “unnecessary” confrontation.
There is millions of relationships that are held together because at least one of the parties is afraid to face reality. There is millions of people that hate their jobs that drag their tired bodies to work everyday because they are to afraid to start over or make waves.
When you get that stuck feeling you will usually discover that you are held back by self-doubt and fear. It is your ego that is holding you back, using your historical doubt and fear to prevent escape or progress.
When you feel stuck you often feel helpless, frustrated, depressed and angry. When you are stuck you have chosen struggle instead of purpose, fear instead of faith, control instead of openness, pride instead of help. When you experience any of the above emotions you should always ask yourself, “What is this stuck feeling trying to tell me?” When you feel stuck your ego is working day and night to write horror scripts for you.
For every potential escape you think of your ego will find examples from your past in an attempt to convince you that your intended action will result in pain and loss. If the ego fails after bombarding you with historical “pain examples” he will create horror images that you could face at some future date if you dared to escape from the stuck zone.
You might be married to a monster that physically and mentally abuse you all the time, but the ego will caution you and remind you of the saying, “Better the Devil you know”.
You might be working for a slaved driver that work you like a mule, but when you want to hand in your resignation you ego will show you videos of people living in cardboard boxes that scrounge for food in dustbins.
Your ego is a master in manipulation and fear. He can write disaster scripts for you game of life that will make wonderful material for a movie. It is fear of failure, loss, disaster, rejection and pain that are binding you in a place where you would rather not be.
You can often see fun, joy, friendship and success a few meters away, but the psychological hold of fear spun around you like a giant spider web keeps you bound in your own personal hell.
They are selling a devise to keep your dogs from straying beyond selected demarcated areas. All you have to do is to fit this device to you dog’s collar and install the invisible parameters that you want it to stay in. When the dog reaches the outer parameters the collar is activated and will induce a painful shock to such dog. After a few attempts the dog “learns” the “safe areas” that he can operate in and will remain in these areas even when the device is switched off. The reminder of the pain when he went outside the “acceptable” parameters is enough to tame even the most stubborn dog.
I am sure you can see that we allow our egos to also keep us locked in by reminding us of past pain and discomfort if we ever dare to contemplate escape from our “discomfort” zone.
“I AM SO CONFUSED” Being stuck often betrays an inner conflict between “yes” and “no”, “want to” and “won’t”, positive intent and fear. The mind is split between what it wants and what it is afraid to have. When you are stuck, the mind is often pulling in two opposing directions.
Have you ever been faced with too many options? When you want to buy a piece of jewellery and they place ten items to choose from in front of you, you usually become confused and often just do not know which one to select. Often when you arrive at a “crossroad” in your journey through life you get stuck there for long periods because you are afraid that you might make the wrong choice.
In selling the salesperson will usually sell you on one specific product and then close the deal by making you choose between the obvious choice and something else. When you select the obvious choice they close the deal. What they have done is get you to make a buying decision by distracting you. A poor salesperson will ask you to chose between ten items and lose the sale.
WHEN YOU FEEL STUCK: When you feel stuck you need to answer the following questions.
· What am I afraid of?
· What am I resisting?
· What am I blocking?
· What am I not being honest about?
· What am I not looking at?
· What am I holding on to?
· What am I not saying?
· What am I not giving?
· What am I refusing to hear?
· What am I punishing myself for?
· What do I want acting in this manner?
Write down your answers to the above questions. The next step is to take action and to prevent your ego to force you back into the “no win” zone. They key here is action and to continue to operate in the now. When you allow your ego to use the past to predict your future you are in a no-win zone. You run on the treadmill of life and get nowhere.
There is no need to remain in this “fear zone” any longer my friend. This is the area where you recycle all your old garbage and foster a friendship with your useless ego. It is a call to let go of the past and unwrap the present. It is a call to give up your ego and step into your true light. The true light continues to shine in the now, where the past is a dreary place with a rotten smell. There is no purpose living in the past or the future.
When you feel that you are stuck it must always be taken as a warning that you are dabbling with garbage again. I discovered that action is a deadly killer of yesterday’s monsters. These monsters feed on your indecision and doubt and will starve to death when you chose action and progress. Your dominating ego will go to sleep and stop dominating you once you have shown him that you are now a person that live in the now. The reoccurring nightmares will come to an end and you life will take on a brand new dimension.
You will never get stuck at the crossroad of life again. You will love change and take back the control of your life that might have been in the hands of the heartless and gutless ego.
The founder of a Russian combat school says you do not even need to touch your enemy to defeat him. What you really need, though, is the right mental attitude.
Vadim Starov, the owner of the combat school, explains that non-contact fighting is about taking control of the opponent’s psyche and giving him a false target. He claims the technique can help you overpower someone far stronger than you.
“I am in a trance, I am relaxed. I am giving the dog a bone. Look the bone is here! Now, it is here! Now, it flies away, and he follows it”, this is how the coach commentates his fighting technique, as he manages to defeat his opponents while hardly touching them.
Non-contact fighting is rumored to have been developed in secret by the Soviet Special Forces to give them an edge against their counterparts.
Dedicated followers are growing in number almost every week.
“I saw his aura straight away at the first session. I closed my eyes and it glowed in front of me”, says one of the men in Vadim’s gym.
“Vadim’s system is a way of changing your own psychological make-up and then that of your opponent. It’s not so much a fight as a conversation”, adds another student.
Miracle, fraud or plain ridiculous, as it might seem to many, the technique has some scientific basis.
“There are a lot of myths around what this non-contact fighting can do – and its powers are exaggerated. These psychological techniques do exist, but most people cannot use them consciously,” says Sergey Klyuchnikov, director of a center of practical psychology.
Vadim himself stresses that non-contact fighting is not appropriate for every situation, and cannot be perfected without advanced psychological training.
Anyway, his gym seems to be prospering. And while it may be some time before all of the world’s conflicts are resolved without so much as a punch being thrown, Vadim Starov is already planning to open new schools all over Russia to cope with the growing demand for learning his methods.
The Utopia Trap is the belief that you must create better conditions in society before you can be free
It’s a very basic, very understandable belief. It’s easy to see that other people are arranging things incorrectly — passing the wrong laws, misinterpreting things, even maliciously arranging things to the detriment of others. You can see poverty, repression, prejudice, and other conditions that stifle creativity and happiness.
It’s easy to feel that society needs an overhaul (major or minor) before you’ll be able to live freely. As a result, you can devote a great deal of effort to attempts to make others understand what you see, to the passing of laws, to a quest for a better society.
While you’re doing this, you obviously give up a great deal of time and other resources that could have been used to enjoy life. But it’s assumed that once the proper overhaul of society is completed, you’ll be able to live more freely.
There are two basic reasons why I don’t get involved in the quest to change society: (1) because it’s an indirect alternative, it’s a much harder, more permanent job than most people realize; and (2) it isn’t necessary. An individual doesn’t need to live in a free society in order to free himself — and when he tries to change the world, he’s in for a lot more trouble than he may have bargained for.
Your challenge is clear: To re-create your self, to become the person you want to be, living the life you desire, you must change the negative, contradictory, and outdated beliefs that are creating the unsatisfactory conditions of your life.
If you already believe in your ability to change, then this column will reaffirm and strengthen that positive belief. If you’re thinking, “People can’t really change,” this column will help you change your beliefsabout your ability to change.
Consider this: Your beliefs create your life; therefore, you, and only you, control your life, forming your experiences in line with your belief system. Because you can examine and evaluate each belief, and decide whether or not you want to keep it, then it follows that you, and only you, can make the changes you desire, by discarding those beliefs that do not produce the desired results.
You Control Your Life
You are the author of the “autobiography” known as your life. If you’re unhappy with some of the “chapters,” you must revise and rewrite them until you are satisfied, fulfilled. But first you must accept that you, and not some “ghost-writer in the sky,” are doing the writing.
Many people deny authorship of their life story. They begrudgingly accept some responsibility for their experiences – but only up to a point. Beyond that point, they tell them-selves and anyone who will listen, that their own life is out of their control. On the one hand, denying your role in creating the unsatisfactory conditions of your life is a convenient way to absolve yourself of responsibility for whatever you don’t like about your self. On the other hand, this behavior doesn’t reflect the truth of being, nor is it helpful in putting your life on a stronger footing.
Most commonly, the people who deny their part in creating the unfulfilling aspect of their lives claim that their life story is written largely by some “collaborator,” or “co-author.” Their “co-author” is called by many names. God, Fate, Luck, Karma, and the Stars, are among the most popular.
The truth is, you are the sole author of your life story. You see, we live in an orderly universe. The sun rises in the East every morning and sets in the West every night; gravity is a consistent, not whimsical, force. We are a part of – and not apart from – the universe’s natural order. In other words, either we control our lives, or we don’t. Either nothing is an accident, or everything is an accident.
Have you accepted responsibility for your life? Have you claimed the power and the privilege to control your destiny? If you haven’t, then you’re harboring a false belief about the way life works. You’re surrendering self-responsibility to whatever outside forces you believe are in control.
Take My Power….Please!
“Take my wife….please!” It’s an old joke.
People seem equally eager to give away the power to control their life, and that’s no joke. They find many ways to release personal responsibility. “I’m a victim of my past,” is a lament I frequently hear. When you accept this negative belief, you empower past experiences with an undeserved energy to create future havoc. And you miss a very important point: You are meant to learn from the past, not to allow yourself to be controlled by it.
One major purpose in life is to develop self-knowledge through experience, replacing the beliefs that limited past achievement with attitudes that will form a more perfect tomorrow. Your power to become the person you want to be, living the life you desire is in the present, and this power should be increased, not diminished, by what you’ve learned from past experiences – both good and bad. You aren’t a victim of your past, unless you believe you are.
“I must have been awful in a past life, because I’m sure paying for it now!” It’s amazing and distressing how often I hear this kind of self-indictment from people who consider themselves “spiritually aware.” Even more dangerous than surrendering control of your life to past experiences is accepting the false belief that past-life transgressions are causing your present challenges.
Karma represents the sum total of your experiences. It indicates fortuitous directions for personal growth and development. Karma doesn’t imply punishment, nor does it dictate current events. You aren’t a cosmic prisoner serving time for the crimes of some past life you probably don’t remember. The universe doesn’t judge and sentence anyone. Karma doesn’t unfringe upon your free will. Your life isn’t controlled by a karmic debt from this, or any, lifetime – unless you believe that it is.
A Re-Creating Your Self Thought: I was my first, and possibly, most difficult, student. Because I was capable of re-creating my self, I’m certain that you can re-create your self.
Far too many times, I hear something such as this from a Re-Creating Your Self reader or student: “I just can’t control my temper! `I’m always getting into arguments and fights, then, later, I feel terrible. But what can I do? I’m Aries, the Ram. Aries people are naturally angry, stubborn. We’re always ‘butting heads’ with others, especially with other Aries. So moaned a student who believed that his experiences were determined, now and forever, by a zodiacal sign. He was all too eager to absolve himself of control over his life.
A belief in astrology, as it is most commonly understood, can be just another way of saying, “Take my power…please!” But the belief that your life is charted by the positions and movements of heavenly bodies is jus that – a belief – and a false and self-limiting one at that. It’s not an irrevocable fact of life. Prove it for your self by opening a newspaper and reading your daily horoscope for a week, or by meeting one of the many Aries people who are peaceful and good-natured, not angry and quarrelsome. Your life is not controlled by the stars, unless you believe it is.
“My boyfriend’s negativity is creating bad experiences in my life,” confided a student. Five minutes earlier, she had laughed smugly, chiding people who blamed karma or the stars for the less than satisfactory conditions of their lives. Yet here she was blaming her bad experiences on her boyfriend’s perceived negativity. “He’s really powerful and strong-willed, like a Svengali,” she continued. “I just can’t resist doing whatever he asks.”
If someone is controlling you, it’s only because you have, on some level, willingly surrendered control. Either verbally or telepathically, you have told that person, “Take my power…please!” Your life is not controlled by others, unless you believe it is.
To whom, or to what, are you saying, “Take my power…please?!” Have you ever said something like this: “God willing, I’ll get that job,” or, “I’ll get well, if it’s God’s will.” Your life is no more controlled by God than by any other external force. If you believe in a Supreme Being, then understand: It’s God’s will for you to use the free will that S/He gave you. To do otherwise is to throw that precious gift back in God’s Face. Not recommended. When you believe that God manipulates and controls you, then you are diminishing the Supreme Being to little more than a Cosmic Buttinsky. Your life isn’t controlled by a controlling, punishing God unless you believe it is. And the same goes for the Devil: The simple truth is, He didn’t make you do it.
Once again, I’m here to tell you, you and you alone have the power, the privilege and the responsibility to control your life. Are you willing to accept this power, privilege and responsibility? Or do you feel the need to burden God, or some other external force, with a responsibility that is naturally your own?
A Re-Creating Your Self Thought: To whom, or to what, are you saying, “Take my power…please?!” More importantly, why do you want to hand over the responsibility for your life and all of its conditions to someone, or to some thing, other than your self? These are critical questions and I hope you will take time to meditate upon the answers within your self.
When I ask students, or readers of the book, to ponder these questions, I most frequently hear something such as this in response to the question, “Why do you want to hand over the responsibility for your life to someone, or to some thing, else?”
“It’s too much responsibility for me to admit that I’m controlling my life and all of its conditions. When things go wrong, it’s good to tell family and friends, ‘Well, “this” or “that” was out of my control.’”
Everyday you make a thousand choices. You choose what to wear, where to go, who to meet, what to eat and what to do. MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL, YOU decide WHAT TO THINK. One thing is sure and that is that your day will not be better than your thoughts. ...................
Just close your eyes for a moment and see if you can visualise this open toolbox and if you can see the hundreds of tools that are neatly placed in this toolbox. Now look if you can see the maker’s name on these tools. The creator of these tools (thoughts and perceptions) is you. You created thousands of thoughts and perceptions (tools) about everything since your childhood. ..................
When confronted with any situation or problem you reach into this toolbox and take out what you think the most appropriate tool would be and then attempt to fix the problem. It is estimated that your mind thinks at least 2,500 thoughts an hour. Every thought that you think is a tool (perception) that you have that you imagine would work best under specific circumstances. This thought process continues day and night and will do so for the rest of your life. .....................................
I am convinced that we think ourselves to a standstill. We never stop playing with these tools in our toolbox and can hardly ever really relax for a while. If we are not faced with a problem or task that needs completion we still continue to take out these tools and mentally rehears and contemplate how we will use them should something that we fear become a reality. ............................
We are forever thinking and scheming and never become still and tranquil inside. Our bodies might seem relaxed, but deep inside our heads this thought process continues churning around. What I am most worried about is that most of the tools that you have in your toolbox are very old and outdated. .......................
Many of the opportunities, problems and obstructions that you face daily cannot be repaired while you are using old and outdated tools. If you take a modern mechanic’s toolbox and you place the toolbox of a mechanic of fifty years ago next to it you will find that there are major discrepancies. When you are confronted with something that needs repair and you do not have the right tool for the task at hand it can be very frustrating. We usually improvise and try using some other tools and hope that it will also get the job done. ........................
When you are faced with a problem you need to select the right tool for the task at hand. If you do not have the tool in your toolbox it can complicate your life. What most people seem to ignore is that it is sometimes better not to reach for your toolbox when faced with a problem. Sometimes you need time to pass or need to leave the problem with its rightful owner. How well you use your tools is usually reflected in the world you see around you. What would you do if you were faced with any or all of the following? .........................
You get a flat tire on your way to an important customer or meeting. You can fall apart, develop a migraine and think that life is against you or you can take out the right tools (patience and reality) and take care of the problem in a relaxed manner. ........................
You have been working on the computer for hours and suddenly lose all your work. You can drop dead with a heart attack; think that God hates you or you can take out the right tool (sanity and reality) and begin over and this time remember to make a backup of your work. ....................
A lover or wife possibly cheated on you. You can go crazy and get an assassin to take out the potential threat to your relationship, think that you are a failure or you can take out the right tool (no fear of loss) and get on with your life. .......................
When you have the right tools in your toolbox it makes life a lot easier. The choices we make are vital in our lives. The more quality choices we make during any given day the higher the probability of success and peace of mind. ................
I suggest that you equip your toolbox with the best tools you can lay your hands on. It is important to upgrade if you discover that one of your tools are outdated or that a more modern version is available. How would you react if your TV packed up and a technician that obviously knows very little about electronics arrived at your house with only a sledgehammer and a few other primitive tools in his toolbox? I am sure that you will send him away and find someone better qualified and equipped for the task. .....................
You might sometimes be like this incompetent and poorly equipped technician indicated above if you do not often update your tools (thoughts) in your toolbox. You can also have all the right tools in your toolbox and never use them because you are afraid that you might make a mistake. ..................
You must remember that happiness and success is always just one thought (tool) away. You should remember when you find it difficult to cope with something that one new tool (thought) could change your life. One fresh thought and one new idea can change your life from pain and suffering to success and peace of mind. ........................
You are today what you were programmed with yesterday. The choices that you make on a moment-to-moment basis decide your fate and future. You can never feel or perform better than the ongoing thoughts and feelings that you allow to occupy your mind! .......................
The mistake we make is that most of us live our lives on a reactive basis. We start and complete our day in a reactive state of being. Something comes to our attention via our five senses or via a thought in our mind. We automatically slip into the “role” that we created for ourselves many moons ago. We act, react and experience the same feelings and emotions that we embedded with our scrip at its inception. We do exactly the same when new stimuli push the previous “drama” off the stage in our minds. We sustain this reactive mode of thinking until we finally go to bed at night. Most of our days are made up of a tapestry of “roles” that we played in our own colorful way. It is important to understand that nothing is going to change until we do something different. We cannot repeat the same old recipes and expect a different outcome. ....................
You can use the “Portable Life Skills Wisdom” book to develop a range of appropriate scripts that you can use when you are faced with a problem or project that need your attention. You will if you apply the scripts in this book find that you no longer run your life on a reactive basis. The new scripts will help you to live your life in the moment. You will become more realistic. You will treat each event on its own merit. How do you do this? ......................
The Process ....................
Read the first message in your book. Write it down if at all possible. It will assist you to absorb the data provided. Now sit back and close your eyes and visualize how you will apply the specific message in the various areas of your life. See yourself on the screen of your mind using the message in all your day-to-day activities. It is important to attempt to feel and experience the benefits that this new mode of thinking will bring into your life. Do this for ten minutes. Then open your eyes and begin to apply the wisdom on all occasions where appropriate in your activities on that given day. ...........................
Proceed to do the same with second message etc. in your book tomorrow. You will upload almost a thousand powerful recipes if you sustain the process indicated above. You can in less than three years upload a powerful “tool” system that will serve you for the rest of your life. This can be a life changing experience if you apply it daily. You will discover that the ten minutes you invest daily will upload countless new strategies into your subconscious computer. Build a successful and happy life. The key however is action. You can have the best tools available to man and still fail if you don’t use them daily. Wishing you the very best with this endeavor. .............................
Daily Support System (This Blog) ................
You not only have the massive key ideas in the book that you can use when appropriate you also receive daily posts on a wide range of subjects that will expand this system to a level never offered before. Visit this blog daily for fresh new ideas with a sprinkle of historical wisdom that stood the test of time. ..........................
Rene
PORTABLE LIFE SKILLS DAILY WISDOM GUIDE 