solutions

If You’re Man, Stop Doing Easy Shit 150 150 admin

If You’re Man, Stop Doing Easy Shit

I stumbled on this video today by Elliot Hulse, and it really spoke to me, and by spoke to me I mean it’s some shit I needed to hear NOW. Some of my best times are where I had to face the fire…my greatest fears and out came such beauty. Beauty I’ll never forget and that I’m proud of today. I took on this daily blogging challenge because I wanted more edge, more challenge, and I want to invite a lot more now.

Suffering, pain, sacrifice, failure all help to grow stronger, and Elliot Hulse is all about becoming the strongest versions of ourselves.

Using Death to Help You Prioritize 150 150 admin

Using Death to Help You Prioritize

When I went to a workshop CLW (conscious life workshop), we did an exercise there where we imagined we were on our death beds.  The leader then asked us if there’s anything we would regret and to write it down.

I remember going to that workshop with the intent to learn more about passive income and making a living doing heart-centered work, but when I did that exercise another goal bubbled up to the surface.  A regret I had would have been to have died and never solved my weight issue.  I had been fat for most of my life, and tried different diets, but never really threw the kitchen sink at the problem, and never tried to solve it socially.

I thought it was funny how that exercise brought up the real priority for me at the time.  I soon after joined a group who dealt with food addiction.

I know the thought can be unpleasant, but imagine you’re on your death bed.  Is there anything that you would regret?  Is there any problem or struggle that leaves a sour taste in your mouth from the thought that you didn’t get around to it?  This is one tool…an exercise that could help you find your real priorities.

Voice: 5 Ways People Can Turn Your Volume Down Growing Up 150 150 admin

Voice: 5 Ways People Can Turn Your Volume Down Growing Up

Do you have a weak voice or a strong voice?  Is your voice loud or soft?  Do the people around you encourage your voice or discourage it?  Are you able to recognize when someone tries to turn the volume of your voice down?

Expression is a key component in being human, and in humans voice is a key medium through which expression can occur.  It benefits us to exercise our own voice in a way that aligns with the highest good of all.  It’s also beneficial to encourage others to exercise their voice when it is in alignment with the highest good of all, and to discourage their voice when it’s out of alignment.

Think about how you grew up.  Did the authority figures in your life encourage you to exercise your voice?  Did they create a safe space for you to do so?  If you’re not sure, here’s some ways they might have turned the volume of your voice down.

  1.  Blatantly telling you to “shut up” too many times
    • “hush”, “be quiet”, “shhhh” are forms of this.   There are times where kids don’t need to be talking, but it shouldn’t be all the time.  There can be too much “shut up” by the authorities in your life growing up.
  2. Drowning You Out
    • Too much music being played too often?  The TV being on 24/7?   Maybe it’s even a person who talks non-stop and does very little listening.
  3. Deterioration of conversations
    • If there’s a conversation going along that could actually progress somewhere, there can be a person or people who purposely or inadvertently deteriorate the conversation by spewing nonsense / lies / bullshit.  Instead of actually putting in the effort to seek to understand what’s going on in the conversation and attempting to add value or asking to learn more, or finding another conversation more their speed and style to participate in, they take the easy, lazy and destructive way and come in like a bomb and blow the conversation up and diminish whatever you’re talking about with their bullshit.
  4. Endless arguing and debating
    • Maybe there’s a person in authority who likes to argue for no reason.  They see everything you say as an opportunity to spark up a debate.  After a while, it can become exhausting expressing yourself to this person, especially if you see these debates as pointless and circular.  Nobody changes their behavior or reaches a higher level or awareness or learns anything.  It’s almost as if it’s just wasted time.
  5. Creating or allowing harsh consequences for turning your volume up
    • doing things to oppose #1-4 could result in consequences that you might not want to deal with if you .  Speaking anyway after being told a version of shut up could have consequences.  Trying to talk over the things drowning you out could have consequences.  Creating a boundary between the person who blows up conversations with bullshit could have consequences.  Standing on what you know is right with the debater?  consequences.

I’ve been through all of these growing up.  If I asked why they did these things, they’d probably feel attacked and ultimately respond with some version of “you got off light, you should have been around when we were growing up” – and if they were to say that I’d believe them.  Everyone is doing the best they can at their level of awareness, and I believe the volume of their voices was turned down even more than mine was.  This leads me to ask how far does this go back with my family?  When I traced it back, it felt like I got hit with a ton of bricks when I landed at slavery.  When slaves were brought to America, their whole beings were muted and there were some of the severest consequences for turning the volume of their voice up.

As an adult I can establish much firmer boundaries with people who exhibit these behaviors, but it still makes me think about the kid growing up dealing with this.  I think about those kids who are keeping their volume low right now and how their volume will remain low right into adulthood.  I think about the adults now who grew up having to keep the volume of their voice low, and the consequences of that and how much we’re missing out on their expression.

If someone turned down the volume of your voice as a child, you could easily find your self in a job that reinforces that dynamic when you grow older.  You’ll naturally attract a job that puts you in that same position because it’s comfortable for you.  It feels more natural to you because it’s been repeated over and over.   You might also find yourself in relationships with people who do the 5 things mentioned above.

Of course, you’re free to change this.  You do not have to accept your volume being low and you can connect with people who actively bring out your voice and encourage you to express your authentic self fully.  That’s what the world needs more of.

How can you make your voice stronger?  Where do you feel you should amplify your voice?

Sometimes the Thing You Don’t Want to Do Is the Thing You Need To Do 150 150 admin

Sometimes the Thing You Don’t Want to Do Is the Thing You Need To Do

I know.  Sometimes you know you need to do this thing…whatever it is, but you don’t want to.  You know it’s beneficial for you and for everyone in every way to do this thing, but you still don’t want to.

I first heard this from a sponsor who I would talk to every morning in a food group I was in, so I have been here plenty of times.

Most of the times the answer here is to surrender to whatever process I’m going through.  My mind is telling me all the reasons not to do this thing, and I’m resisting it for whatever reason…maybe it’s unknown…maybe I’m not aware of the benefits of doing it yet, but if I can put down the resistance like a hot coal and surrender to the process, then things will change for the good of all.

 

The Counterintuitive Solution to “Poor Me” 150 150 admin

The Counterintuitive Solution to “Poor Me”

Sometimes there’s a life event or a series of life events that impact us in ways we perceive as negative which then might lead us to go into “poor me” thinking.

It’s where you’re feeling sorry for yourself and could lead to a big circle.  You keep looking at your life situation > you perceive it was negative > you feel powerless to change it how you want it> and feel even worse and the spiral downwards continues.

It feels like reality has violated your trust, and what happens when trust is eroded?  You might be hesitant to put yourself out there again to reality because they are afraid of being hurt again.

So then what happens?  Here is where you feel the need to contract.  You might feel like you need to isolate and protect yourself from reality’s trust violation.  You might feel like you need to hoard resources and information and keep to yourself, but the solution is counterintuitive.  The answer is to expand, get out of yourself and help others as much as you can.

What this will do is put your problems in perspective, and turn down the volume of your own problems.  When you’re in the midst of negative life situations, it can have a tendency to be right there in your face…taking up all your mental space.  You can easily compare and despair (comparing yourself to someone you perceive having a better life situation than you and feeling inferior/jealous/envious because of the comparison).  Helping someone seems to open the door to invite your own answers in.  You want / need coaching?  Coach someone else.  You want / need accountability?  Hold someone else accountable.  You need / want money?  Give money.

These counterintuitive solutions help you get back into flow with reality, and your relationship to this reality is of the utmost importance.

Locking On To A Vibe 150 150 admin

Locking On To A Vibe

Has there ever been a time where you experienced an unforgettable moment?  Where you remember the energy being amazing?  Maybe you…

  • hung out with a group of people who inspire you or
  • went to an event or
  • had a celebration or
  • went to a workshop or
  • traveled somewhere or
  • a performed in some way or
  • had an “aha” moment where life changed

Know that at any point, you can recreate that feeling.  Your outside circumstances don’t have to be in those particular ways for you to feel those feelings.  You can recreate that vibe within you now.  Close your eyes and put yourself back in that moment.   The more you can recreate that vibe here and now, the more your circumstances or life situation must change to match that feeling…that vibe.  Play with it.

I know when I have one of those moments, it’s a real breakthrough because I can lock it in, so if I ever fall way out of alignment I can hone in on that vibe again.  Personally, I’m working on locking those feelings in daily, so much so that it becomes normal to have them and experience them, and they aren’t so out-of-the-ordinary.

Blunt and Direct Books 150 150 admin

Blunt and Direct Books

If you feel like you’ve been in your head a lot – intellectually thinking about different concepts and shuffling through different ideas from different sources – and you take a hard, honest look at your actual real-world results and accomplishments and assess that you have nothing to show for all this thinking, then perhaps you should get yourself in motion and take some actual action.

If I feel like I need to balance ideas, concepts, thinking, daydreaming with something more grounded, practical and down-to-earth I’ll use mental programming and listen to some grounded material…maybe even courses with actual action steps.   If not an actual course on a subject or area I want to make progress in, I’ll go with mental programming and chose someone grounded to listen to.

Grounded, practical book suggestions:

Almost any book from Brian Tracy

Relentless – Tim S. Grover

The 50th Law – 50 Cent and Robert Greene

The War of Art – Steven Pressfield

These books are written in a tell-it-like-it-is style.  There is a rise in this style due to lots of “feel-good” books.  I think those two styles support each other.  A lot of the books with positive messages, affirmations, feel-good material enhance your ability to take bold and direct action without being hindered by your doubts and fears.  BUT like anything, there can be too much of a good thing.  Balance the “feel-good” messages, affirmations, ideas, concepts, and anything else that goes in the head with more motion and bold, inspired, direct action outward.

 

 

 

Level-Up Moments 150 150 admin

Level-Up Moments

Have you had moments where you felt like your life really leveled up?  Are there any patterns you see in these moments?

For every level-up moment I’ve experienced, I can trace it back to something I embraced that was new for me.  Also, through taking in new input, it helped me see old things with a new perspective.

A Few Level Up Moments

For example, a moment when I leveled up socially was during a workshop.  I had been trying to solve this problem of making money in an inspiring, heart-centered way all alone.  This wasn’t working.  Instantly after meeting people who were making a living in a heart-centered way and connecting dots, things started shifting quickly in a positive direction.  I started making passive income every month after my first book was published 3 years ago (right after the workshop) and still continue to make a liiiiiiitle every month now.  This changed how I looked at finances.  I had been serving a company to earn money before…and that means I served one entity.  But with the book I published lots of people benefitted – in a smaller way, but the volume of people I served was waaaay larger and I loved a lot more of the process. From then on I saw how the solution to this problem was more of a social problem than a how-to, step-by-step, information / mental problem.  It made me look at the old way of doing things with a new perspective.

Another level up moment is when I joined a 12-step program, and left a lot of my life up to my sponsor.  It was beautiful.  From the moment I got the sponsor, health wise and weight-wise my life was better.  I ended up losing 110 lbs from that moment.  Again…the answer for me was social.  They told me exactly what to eat and when and how to satisfy my hunger to be able to sustain it to lose weight and have a normal-sized body.

I had to embrace spending $500 on a workshop and traveling to Las Vegas. I had never spent that much money on a workshop and never traveled to Las Vegas.  That was new for me.  I had to embrace joining a 12-step program (I actually didn’t know it was a 12-step program before joining) and having a sponsor who told me what to do.  That was new as hell!

Now I’ve seem to come to a place where I’m being called to embrace more input.  Even with this blog…it’s not receiving much traffic now, but i know the steps to get it off the ground because I’ve repeatedly gotten things off the ground before.  It feels like I’m being called to get more of my work/art/ideas etc into more people’s hands, to put it out there in a much bigger way, and invite more feedback and be able to handle and process it consistently.  That will be new for me in so many areas.  It requires me to face many fears, but it seems unavoidable if I want to take my life in a direction where I want to make my living through creative expression.  It is feeling like one of those level up moments.

Back to You

What is calling you?  Is there something in your life that you want to level up?  Embrace the new as much as possible to spark a level-up moment!  New experiences or new travel destinations or new vacations or new workshops or restaurants or new habits or new trials or new input or new physical exercise or new groups to join or create.

You might find old, mental conditioning rising up in your mind to enhance your doubts and fears, but suspend the disbelief for a while.  Don’t block the energy that is leading you to new.  Follow the breadcrumbs, stay curious and follow the energy where it wants to flow on step at a time.  Keep consulting with the present moment and allow the next right action step to come through.