Kategoriarkiv: #English

Be creative versus Take action

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On one of the first weeks of the Create the impossible-course the theme was Be creative. Michael Neill spoke in the daily audio on creativity, giving different assignments, one of which was to create something from nothing. Overall, the entire week centered around creativity.

And you cannot imagine the magnificent examples of creativity that my fellow classmates birthed and shared with the rest of us. There were songs, blog posts, paintings, elaborate meals, and also a lot of headway of the various create-the-impossible-projects of people in the group. The energy was mostly light, bright, bouncy and joyful, with a lot of play and openness as to what wanted to be created. 

Then a few weeks later, the weekly theme was Take action. Michaels daily audio gave instructions to take action, even to take massive action, to just-do-it, and really get down to work, so to speak. 

And the difference, also in me, was amazing to witness. Some people jumped right in and took action, being totally fine with it. But myself, and a lot of the others on the course, got up in our thinking. I had thoughts such as

Is it really appropriate to force myself into action? 

What if I don’t feel like taking action? 

Should I really force myself into it? 

Will I take the correct actions if I force myself, or will that mean I’ll be working against my intuition? 

Well, you can probably hear my inner dialogue spinning around and around on this, with a lot of judgement thrown in, ideas about right and wrong, and a fear of going down the wrong path. 

Then something happened. Michael spoke about the theme of the Take action-week during the weekly phone-in-session, and I was reduced to hysteric giggles at how silly I’d been. Because what Michael so aptly pointed out, is that being creative and taking action, are really jusy two different ways of talking about the same thing. 

Doh!!! 

I had a huge Homer-Simpson-moment when that hit home. 

Because he’s right. It is. Being creative is about taking action. It’s about just doing something, making something come to life. Whether it be a song, a meal for the family, a painting, a website, a blog post or an email asking someone for assistance. Taking action is about being creative, it’s about taking steps towards a goal, or just taking a step forward anyway, because it feels appropriate to take a step forward. 

It’s just different words. And it became painfully obvious to me, that I place totally different meaning upon these two words. Which is actually a great piece of information! If I’m paralysed by the Be creative-bit, well then, don’t go there. Use the Take action-vocabulary instead, by all means. And vice versa. If Taking action feels very serious, strict and rather makes your imagination and creative playful side shut down, inhibiting you from actually taking action, well, then use words like Be creative instead. Simple right?

Because neither is more right or wrong than the other. It’s just two different ways of getting things done. Of making stuff happen. And trust me on this my friend, making things happen is a key factor for progress, for movement, for learning, for expanding. So whatever you do, make stuff happen! And perhaps play with these two concepts to find out which gets your juices flowing?

The choice is mine

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Now. I might just be really slow on the uptake, but I was seriously astounded by an aha-moment I had a few months ago when I read what went something like this:

Each time you eat you have a choice, whether or not to put something in your mouth that brings you either towards health or towards unhealth.

Now, I am very conscious about food and know what’s healthy etc, but still – the simplicity of this statement brought me to a stand still. I froze. And realized the beauty of actually putting it down to this, each and everytime I either eat or drink. Because sometimes I might not care, I’d rather choose something yummy and totally bad for me than refrain. And that’s fine. Because othertimes I’ll choose to refrain or to pick and choose more carefully, in order to actually bring me towards physical health.
Now, for some things I’d rather have a once-in-a-lifetime-choice to make rather than having to decide each and every time. But for other things, not so prone towards the never-again-option that pops into my head when I think about this. For the #cleanse4expansion project I’m currently running, I decided when I started to do a minimum of 15 minute of daily cleansing. Easy. Choice made. Mind made up. And yup, I’ve stuck by it, because I said I would. But when it comes to eating and drinking, I’ve certainly thought about it a lot, but haven’t made any decisions like that. Yet. Might. Who know’s right?
 
But still. The ”stop eating crap all the time”-diet certainly appeals to me. That’s for sure. And I don’t. Eat crap all the time, that is. Once in a while, yup. Haven’t gone absolute on this. Yet, as I just said. I might. I am certainly well on my way to a severely reduced crap-intake, that’s for sure. Being flexitarian I very rarely eat meat (and when I do, it’s very seldom ”industrial-grade” meat), on account of this our skillet is very rarely used, I eat more and more organic food, lots of fruits and vegetables, my morning green smoothies are to die for, the raw food balls I make are an excellent snack together with a handful of (organic and soaked) almonds, and so on.
But am I a purist? No. Not at all. I eat the occational take-away pizza. Chips, cakes, popcorn, desserts. I eat candy. Or at least did. Am contemplating cutting candy out of my diet actually – with the exception of chocolate. I love chocolate, dark, organic, preferably plain. Yum. Well. You get the picture. And the thing is, being more aware that there is a choice to eat/drink my way towards health or unhealth makes the choice to go for the healthy stuff easier and easier. But it all comes down to one thing: I feel better. I have more stamina. My body and I are becoming good friends. I listen more to what my body is telling me, and I am more loving towards it. I want it to thrive!
So, have you tried the new ”stop eating crap all the time”-diet yet?

Podcast 22/52 – Life-sucking lies?

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I just loved this episode from Good Life Project with Jonathan Fields, on the number one life-sucking lies that many many people listen to… me included!

Can you figure out what the number one life-sucking lie we all tell ourselves is?

I don’t have time. 

Feel familiar? Oh how many times I’ve stated that I don’t have time. But, alas, it isn’t a common phrase in my vocabulary any more. Honestly. I’ve experimented with removing phrases like I don’t have time, I’m so busy, I just don’t have space for anything else, and the like. Included in that is also a choice to replace Musts and Shoulds with Wants.

And guess what? It actually does make a difference for me. Being specific with what I want to do, as opposed to stating what I must do, does make a huge difference in how I approach that which I chose to do.

BoldomaticPost_It-s-not-the-box-that-societyIn this short GLP Riff Jonathan Fields talks about a few different ways to look at this life-sucking lie, and since I found it valuable, I take him up on his request at the end, by sharing it with you in the hope that you also find it valuable. Do you?

 

Love. Is.

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Love has no labels:

It’s been a while since I watched this the first time. So I just watched it again. And tears fall from my eyes. Because love is. No labels. No bias. It’s pure.

And still – sometimes I catch myself putting labels on love. Judging some relationships as being more true and hence worthy of admiration, and some relationships as less worthy, trying to figure out how it’s possible for love to exist in such circumstances.

That’s on of my biases on love. And I am glad I see it. Because awareness is a great first step towards getting rid of them.

Where does your bias concerning love lie?

Lost my run streak

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Woke up, got my IPhone, and opened the Headspace app. Clicked on a 10 minute unguided meditation but it just froze, nothing really happened, the meditation wouldn’t download. Restarted the app, same thing, so I told myself I’ll do a ”meditation by bike” instead, as I had roughly an hour’s worth of bike riding to look forward to later that day.

Then I woke up again. The next morning. And realized I never did do my ”meditation by bike” and hence, I lost my run streak. I was up to 278 days in a row… and just realized I’d dropped down to zero again. headspaceAnd just as when my blog-every-day-in-a-row-streak was shot after blogging for almost a year without fail in October 2013, I just observed the fact that my run streak was gone. No chastising myself, no telling myself how incredibly stupid and forgetful I was, no moans of regret wishing that it hadn’t happened. Nothing of the sort. Just accepting the fact that I was down to zero, and being ok and absolutely at peace with it.

Because it is ok. The world hasn’t gone to pieces in the days since, and the only action I took was to meditate, when I’d woken up, and I’ve been doing it every day since, just like I was doing before the day I missed it. Can you imagine the amount of heartache and miserable denigrating self-talk I could have saved myself over the years if I had learned this at an earlier stage in my life?

 

Podcast 21/52 – Failure is your friend

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I’ve had a lot of thoughts and conversations centered around the concept of failures, what it is, what it isn’t, why it affects us so much, and how we should look at it in order not to let fear of failure paralyze us. Hence, when I stumbled upon a new (for me) podcast, Freakonomics Radio, featuring an episode entitled Failure is your friend, they had me hooked already.

BoldomaticPost_The-quicker-you-fail-the-moreI haven’t even read the Freakonomics books, but I think there’s one in the book shelf upstairs. After having listened to this episode and one more, I’m definitely picking up the books as well. Because I really like this. They had a fun and kindhearted questioning take on the subject, and seem to be like that overall, which I find very refreshing.

So, not only do I here give you a new podcast, which makes me very happy, since I’ve been a bit introverted lately, listening to the same-old-same-old, but also a subject that I really care a lot for. I also give you an episode which I think is a valuable listen for most everyone.

The fear of failure can be paralyzing, and it has certainly affected me (more in the past than now, luckily!) and many I see around me as well. And I have yet to see that fear of failure serve individuals or humanity at large. On the contrary, many are the things without which our society would not be the same, that are a direct result of people failing well, failing fast, and failing productively.

Are you served by how you relate to failure?

Learning and unlearning

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This is the most fascinating proof of how knowledge differs from understanding:

So amazing to witness the moment when he learns/unlearns, and how it seems to just click in place, somehow. Absolutely mind boggling how he actually had to unlearn something which he’s known for decades in order to learn the new way to ride a bike. It took him much longer than I thought it would, at that, and comparing that to the experience of his son…. Wow!

And yeah, I am deliberately vague, and hope you get curious enough to actually press play on the video above. This really is something worth spending a few minutes on! Ok?

From the deepest despair to the highest hope

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Yesterday at the Innate Health conference a man by the name of Dicken Bettinger spoke. And how he spoke. Dicken shared a few stories, one of which related to a troubled teen, and that’s the one that got to me, real hard. A few minutes in on his sharing my eyes started to tear up and by the end I was sobbing, uncontrollably.  

From a place of opposing feelings; from the deepest despair, that we, ordinary people, can innocently be so cruel to each other, to the highest hope, that if you are listened to, by someone who has an understanding of the way the world actually works (inside out), your life can change in an instant.

Does that sound too easy? As if I look at turning from despair to hope with just a thought as something too lightheartedly?

I ensure you I don’t. But I think you just like I, have experienced at least once in your life, a change of heart, where you go from one state of mind to another, in the blink of an eye, in the time it takes to think one thought.

There’s a quote from Sydney Banks that describes this perfectly:

Everybody, everybody, is only one thought away from whatever you’re looking for, if you can find that one thought. And that one thought — do you know what it is? It’s a state of thoughtlessness, thoughtlessness from the little personal mind. This is why people meditate. The second your mind quietens down, what you call divine mind, spiritual mind, spiritual intelligence, spiritual knowledge, true knowledge — all the same thing in different names — comes into being. And you get what you call an insight, that is a sight from within, deep past your personal mind, and all of a sudden, your world changes. 

That’s where my hope lies. In the fact that a change of heart, a shifting of the way I see and experience the world, can happen in a heartbeat, born by the wisdom contained within one thought. That’s hopeful. And I rejoice at the fact that even though I realized the other day that I will not be coming to this type of conferences again (for now at least), I was there yesterday for an experience that shook me to the core. In the very best of ways, mind you, because I only stayed in despair for a short time. The hopefulness of it all takes over in me, and from there, beautiful things can happen. Because I know that anything is possible. That’s the message for me, after these three days at the Innate Health conference: look to and come from love and understanding. Then anything is possible. Anything. Even the seemingly impossible. Such as turning from a world of despair into a world of hope, all of a sudden. Hopeful isn’t it?

Not my format!

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I am attending the Innate Health conference in the northern outskirts of London at the moment and today is the last day out of three in total. And I had a realization yesterday right before the conference ended, having noticed something in myself both day one and day two: The standard conference format just doesn’t do it for me anymore. Sitting down from morning til late afternoon, just doing intake – listening to this interesting person, these riveting talks, this panel…. with short breaks and lunch, it’s too much for me. My head get’s filled up already by lunchtime. SImply because it’s all too good! And I’m to stingy to leave – I mean, I’ve paid my ticket, I want to get the most out of it…. That last part is of course something I could learn to drop, but still. I wrote in my note book yesterday that I should avoid conferences and go to retreats instead. 

Doodling during the conference – with the occasional message to myself.

I’ve never been on a retreat as such, but there are several that I’ve considered going to. In beautiful surroundings, with a few intake sessions/day, and plenty of space inbetween those sessions, to make sure there’s time to listen to what happens within during the retreat. It’s in the space between where the magic happens, rather than during a seminar, or a plenary panel, or a full day conference. 

My old self had no such issue with full day conferences. Possibly because I didn’t know that something else existed, or perhaps rather because I wasn’t aware of the magic of the space inbetween. I have learnt to reflect, to sit with myself and whatever wants to show up, these past few years, and these last days have given me the realization that I’ve changed. 

I like that. I love it actually. I love noticing the progression within myself, how what I do/feel/think today differs from yesterday, the year before or decades ago. It’s absolutely amazing, and I am so grateful for noticing it. It points to the limitless possibilities of life, of living on this earth, on having this human experience. As I write this I sit here with a silly grin on my face, feeling extremely happy. 

So. I’ve progressed. Full-day traditional conferences no longer do the trick for me, I have different preferences. Now I just need to remember this, the next time an opportunity pops up. And a few already have popped up I just realized. Hm. Time to act according to my understanding, and drop the ”Well just this one time”-attitude that is so easy to fall into when changes are to be made. What’s your best trick for following your wisdom rather than your old habits, in a situation like this?

Love and understanding

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Love and understanding. Yesterday I was reminded, again, that love and understanding is always the answer.   

Asking myself, I know that if I have done something wrong, something I am not proud of, perhaps even ashamed of having done, getting told off, made to stand in a corner to repent, perhaps even being ostracized, that never (!) creates a setting where I dare to truly look within and take ownership of my actions, and know or find a way forward from them, away from them, levelling up, rather than just repeating them over and over. Never.

What does create a setting where I am willing, able, to look within, honestly and consciously, and evolve, is, always, love and understanding. Unconditional. Non-judgmental.  That always does the trick. Given that I step into it myself. That’s the barrier for me. I also need to look at me with love and understanding.

Sometimes I don’t. And then I won’t. Evolve I mean, by looking honestly within. Taking full ownership of myself, my believes and my actions. If I’m stuck in a mode of self-loathing, judgment and disdain, there is no progression. I am stuck. Believing the inner chatter telling me how bad, worthless and pathetic I am, I don’t get away from it. I cannot rise above it, seeing it for what it is: thoughts. Transient, as thoughts are to their very nature. 

But when I step into love and understanding within myself, seeing whatever mindless mental chatter there is for what it is, transient thoughts, not Truth, anything can happen. That’s what I’ve experienced. Anything can happen from that place, the potential is unlimited, endless. Anything. 

And what a place that is to come from, to live from, where anything is possible. Where love and understanding forms the base, the come-from-place. Love and understanding for me. For you. For us. For everything. 

What happens for you when love and understanding is your come-from-place?