I know today that I must embrace change and trust that positive results will always happen as long as I am doing my part. So thankfully, I can move past my fear-based thinking very quickly now. But still it comes — the pattern I am so familiar with — anticipating a future reality created from fear based thinking, making that reality “true” through negative projection — and then actually making decisions and acting on them based on these negative realities that haven’t even happened! And guess what happens — negative outcomes.
My mind still naturally drifts towards fear when changes come. I can always stop the actions that can seem like real solutions when I am thinking this way, because I learned to recognize the pattern. With practice and faith, my thinking gets better too.
Perhaps some day I will truly welcome all change without first having a fear-based reaction. A worthy goal. But I’ll be satisfied with progress towards it.
]]>We all accept that dolphins have a language and a higher form of intelligence. Those of us who love and live with animals know they have spirit and intelligence and beautiful personalities and souls.
This video will change the way you think about what is really happening in the world of animals — watch and let it shift your thinking in new and wonderful ways!
]]>When I am really in touch with this, sometimes I can even observe myself — this is really a separate topic for another day — which is a very powerful tool for me to calm down, stop reacting and judging, and just be.
Airports are wonderful places to watch people. What a miracle life really is, all of us in one place, separate yet together, each person a unique spirit, with so many stories to tell.
I tried a little experiment at the airport the other day. We flew in at night, and I love, when there is no cloud cover, watching the tiny points of light on the earth below and trying to imagine where they are, what is happening, see them as proof of our existence, in perspective with the enormity of the earth and sky. This can be a magical view and I got off the plane feeling light and full and connected to the vastness of Creation and our Creator. Feeling love.
I’m also sure part of this expansive feeling was a book I’d been reading on the plane, “The Invitation,” by Oriah Mountain Dreamer. It had opened my spirit up to authenticity and I was really in the joy of just being me, a human among humans, feeling very grateful.
So my experiment was to observe, detached and with love, every person I could while I was walking. And instead of inventorying the negative, I concentrated on finding something of beauty about each person. How one woman had beautiful hair. Or smooth skin. (One very cute guy had a very cute walk! Not hard to be appreciative!) Tried to look at people who appeared ordinary or even flawed, and pick out one beautiful thing about them and focus on that. Once I got going I was able to quickly see something beautiful in many people passing by. And I was amazed at how my attitude towards them turned to love, kindness, empathy, connectedness.
The next natural outcome of this experiment was that I became aware that I was smiling. And people smiled back. I did a thoughtul gesture or two — held a door, said hello, chatted with a woman pushing her daughter in a wheelchair.
By the time I got to the elevator from my gate I was feeling full of love and very happy. A nice, pervasive, warm happy.
I promptly fired up the car, cranked up the new Eagles CD, and sang all the way home.
We are those tiny points of light we can see while we are flying high over our Earth. We can be tiny points of light in our own lives and the lives of others. By doing simple, unnoticed, unconditional small things.
Try it. I have a goal of trying to make this a daily practice. How much beauty is around us if we look.
I’ll update later on the results!
]]>I had the benefit of long tenures at major corporations, but in work that often changed. I’d work on major customer accounts, and those assignments changed frequently. So I’d get the benefit of a new “job” with the same company, often learning entirely new industries, every year and a half or so. This was good, as I learn quickly and bore easily.
However, as I got promoted and more senior, I began making those should decisions. Or I’d develop a resentment against where I was for some reason, and decide I needed to move to a different position.
Since my ego was making these decisions, often they weren’t really optimal for me, or for my employer. I’d normally succeed anyway, but often without really being fulfilled or happy, and I’d wonder why. And I’d make decisions chasing the money, or the prestige, and often not feel like I’d made the right decision in retrospect.
A few years ago, I made a conscious decision to change this behaviour. I decided to get off the campaign trail. Decided to stop chasing money. I realized I often did not know what was really right for me, since my ego just would not get out of the way. I decided to just focus on doing absolutely the best possible job I could do, and allow things to happen. To get in the flow. To stop resisting — cease fighting — and just be.
Since then, I have never had to campaign for a job. They come to me. And they are always better than anything I would have thought to ask for. I stopped worrying about money. And now there is more than ever. And it comes easily.
I stopped resisting. Started allowing. Stopped trying to “get.” Started “receiving” instead.
Now I am happier, less stressed, more successful, and wealthier too! Just from changing my attitude, and letting go.
I saw a quote the other day (the “Universe” mailed it to me as a matter of fact) that sums it up for me:
“You will be carried along by life’s current once you stop struggling against it.”
Get in the flow!
]]>Instead, we can choose love.
There is a lovely post at the following site that describes this the best I’ve seen (thanks to Jodee Bock for the reference):
]]>There are times (often!) in my work in particular, when it is very easy to forget how grateful I am. In this new age of incredibly flexible work environments, I am blessed with a really wonderful job that allows me to work from home and travel with a reasonable frequency, just enough for freshness and not so much that I get fatigued.
But sometimes, as is my nature, and I think human nature in general, I forget. I’ll grumble and moan and my ego will get large and in charge as it likes to do, and my attitude (and therefore the quality of my work and my spiritual condition) will start to suffer.
Nothing works faster on this than gratitude. Sometimes I get very simple about it — I am grateful that I have eyes, feet, hands, all five senses. That I can breathe. That shakes me loose enough that I can expand it to my home, pets, son, friends, and begin to really connect again with the glorious abundance of life.
My ego gets quieter and smaller then ….. proportions and reactions come back to normal … or close! I see a way clear.
Gratitude is powerful. It keeps us humble, in the present, positive, connected. It is for so much more than material prosperity. In fact, that is really the least of it. It is for hope, sanity, love, peace of mind … the awareness that the most routine facts of life are small miracles, everyday blessings.
Thank you and namaste.
]]>Great food for thought about “Employee Future.”
]]>Depending on whether we work in a small business or a large one, and anything in between, we could have many employer/employee relationships. As an employee, we have a cultural relationship with the corporation. We have relationships with our direct managers, their managers, our co-workers, customers, stakeholders. It’s infinite really. Even families not directly employed are often involved.
Relationships cannot be healthy without trust. Many other factors play a part, but I firmly believe that any relationship that exists without trust is doomed to fail. It becomes toxic, dysfunctional, unhealthy. All good relationships are built on trust.
Employers need to create workplaces that encourage honesty, integrity, and personal loyalty. Communication needs to be open. Professional standards need to be important and personal boundaries respected, but all workplaces should be environments where trust is valued. A corporation and its leaders must have ethics and values. Not just a set of business beliefs and a corporate mission statement that is published and discussed periodically, but a real value system that is vital to the corporate culture. The organizations’ mission and vision have to be alive. Leaders need to lead, to walk the talk.
If we stop thinking about our work as “work”, and start thinking about it as a relationship, ideally a symbiotic one where there is a “win-win”, the natural most essential value must be mutual trust.
]]>Most of them are intellectually or emotionally driven. Intellectual decisions are based on facts, analysis, logical reasoning, and probabilities, to name a few. They are choices we make conciously many times throughout the day. Necessary, practical decisions and choices.
Other decisions are emotional. We make decisions based on how we feel, or more accurately, how we think we feel.
I’ve learned that I can use my emotions as sort of a spiritual radar — when my emotions are joy and love, I am closest to my truest and highest spiritual self, and when my emotions are fear or anger (or one of the hundreds of other derivatives of fear), I am moving away from a spiritual alignment.
One of the best tools I’ve discovered when faced with a decision, particularly one which is very important — such as a job change, a move, whether to accept a promotion or significant project, ending or beginning a relationship — is to examine my motives. This is especially useful when the decision has a high emotional value, or seems to be a difficult decision with resistance, rather than one which seems to be part of a natural flow.
It’s a great question. What’s my motive? Using this tool effectively requires self-honesty and a willingness to really be authentic with myself and others. It’s a thoughtful question and forces me to think things through.
Often I find my motive is ego-based. I may think I want a promotion because I’ll make more money or I want a new set of responsibilities to energize me. But when I really look at my motives, I may really be driven by looking good in comparison to others. I may make a choice that isn’t really right for me because my ego is large and in charge!
On a more common level, I might be tempted to gossip about someone. To judge. I’ve learned, before I open my mouth, or send the email, or make the phone call, to pause. Take a deep breath. Examine my motives. Think it through. Why do I want to gossip? To seem important? Like I know a bit of information that makes me the center of attention? To be superior? To gain advantage over someone?
Then I look at the impact of my decision on others. What is the ripple effect? Will I harm someone? What would the affect be on other people? Would it be positive? If the tables were turned, how would I want to be treated?
It’s not easy to do this all the time. Not even most of the time. But with practice it gets to be more of a habit, and happens without as much effort. And what a valuable practice it is! I create a lot less drama, have fewer regrets, feel much better about myself.
And I also make fewer decisions! Mind my own business more, which really means I just worry about my own behaviour and attitudes. And sure enough, I get better results!
The next time you are faced with a decision that isn’t clear, take a step back. Ask yourself, honestly, what your motive is. And when you discover the answer to that question, you may find your decision becomes much clearer and your confidence in your decision making will really improve. You’ll make better decisions, and feel better about them, and about yourself.
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