Todd Perelmuter's Blog, page 19

How to Maintain Calm in the Time of Challenges

Our Stories Are Different, But We Are the Same

Though everyone’s story is different, we will all face challenges and difficulties. Some things will require urgent and decisive action, and others will call for patience and calm.

No matter our story, the best thing we can do is to practice being present and centered through the hard times and the good times. When we spend some time centering ourselves every day by just taking some deep slow breaths in peace, we prevent our challenges from accumulating and becoming unbearable.

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Email JOIN The Art of Gratitude | Short Film

Gratitude is the most important human emotion because it alone determines the quality of our life. This film is a roadmap back to our grateful hearts.

The post How to Maintain Calm in the Time of Challenges appeared first on EastWesticism.

What Makes You the Best Version of Yourself

Who you are is who you’ve chosen to be. Who you will be depends on the choice you make now.

You are not your genes or the luck of your circumstances.
You are not your surroundings or your influences.
You are not what you eat or what you do.

You are what you choose.

Whether it’s a conscious choice or an unconscious one is up to you. You are a collection of your choices. What you regularly choose are your habits. Where you choose to go, who you choose to spend time with, what you choose to fill the time with, that is who you are. And your choices can change. Who you are is a choice you can change at any time. You can be whoever you want and however you want.
If you want to be more joyful, more grateful, more peaceful, more filled with love and laughter, that starts with a choice you can make right here and now.

Join 10,000 Mental Steps Challenge

You deserve happiness.Your loved ones deserve happiness.

Email Join Returning to Oneness | Short Film

Step out of the world you thought you knew and into the infinite oneness that is who you truly are.

The post What Makes You the Best Version of Yourself appeared first on EastWesticism.

How Do I Know I Need Meditation?

“The greatest relationship we’ll ever have is with ourselves, yet so many people don’t take the time to know what makes them truly happy.” – Todd Perelmuter

Welcome to the first step on the path to peace. Before you can heal thyself, you must know thyself. Once you finish this short quiz, you’ll be able to achieve the following:

Know yourself better.Know where you are.Discover where you want to be.Understand how to reach there. “Do I Need Meditation” Quiz InstructionsBe as honest as you can. These answers just for yourself, you’re not sharing with anyone.Take some time before answering. Introspect. We would recommend being away from any distractions.If it gets too overwhelming, take a deep breath and then continue with the questionnaire. The results will help you understand yourself much better.The answer can either be yes or no. If you answer yes, add 1 to your scorecard. If it’s no, give yourself 0. “Do I Need Meditation” QuizDo you find it easy to focus?Do you live in the present moment?Is your mind mainly filled with positive thoughts?Do you get sound and peaceful sleep?Do you get pleasure from doing small things in life?Do you find yourself full of energy?Do you think you’ve reached your full potential?Do you never procrastinate?Do you love Mondays?Do you find it impossible to lose your peace over things outside your control?When you get angry, are you able to easily calm yourself down?When you wake up, do you find happy and positive thoughts rushing to your mind?Do you feel warm towards every human being?Do you feel happy with the way you look?Do you find yourself optimistic in tough situations?Do you find this life exciting and amazing?Do you find yourself grateful everyday?Do you feel that things are going just as you planned?Do you hardly ever get overwhelmed with what’s happening in your life?Is it true you’ve not yelled at anyone in the last 30 days?Is it true you didn’t get overly upset, frustrated or stressed in the last 30 days?Is it true you don’t feel lonely?Would you call yourself a positive and happy person?Do you consider yourself healthy? Results

If you scored 0 to 5, you’re a fish.
You’re swimming straight but in the wrong direction. You keep making the same choices but you aren’t remembering to learn from them.

If you won’t take any action, right now, you’ll drive yourself to a wrong direction. Take some time to focus on yourself. Everyday, set aside some time to just sit with your thoughts. Observe if your mind fights the free time and tries to fill it and interupt it, or if there is deep peace and contentment instead. Keep doing this until the mind stops trying to avoid itself and starts to accept itself.

If you got 5-10, then congratulations, you’re a duck.
Sometimes you swim aimlessly like a fish but sometimes you can really soar. Some days are really great, but some days you just can’t get it together and life can be a struggle.

At this stage, you’ve got to practice making consistency your goal. You’ve got lots of good habits but you’ve got to make them stick. If you start every single day with a few minutes of meditation, no matter how tired or busy you are, you will set each and every day up to be a massive success.

If you scored 10-20, congratulations, you’re an eagle.
You soar through this world with ease and grace. Sure, it’s not all roses, but you are making it work. You’ve got it together and even though you don’t let anyone see you sweat, privately you wonder if there isn’t more to life than just flying around and eating worms.

To get the most out of this life, an eagle is going to need spend some quality “me” time. Every day, an eagle needs to recharge his spiritual batteries. In order to create inner peace, the eagle needs to carve out some times for peace in their busy day. This can be meditation, yoga, art or a stroll through nature.

If you scored more than 20, congrats, you are the almighty lion.
You do what needs to be done when it needs to be done. You don’t worry about the past or the future, you don’t consume more than you need, and you are always content with who you are and what you are doing.

For lions, the best thing to do is keep it up. Small little habits can really help keep a lion roaring for decades to come. A gratitude journal, a daily meditation practice, a good diet, yoga and exercise, and filling the brain with positive influences is all it will take for a lion to lead a fulfilling life.

Your Path is Still Not Complete! You’re Just Getting Started.
No matter how you did on the questionnaire, every single human being has within them the potential to live the life of their dreams. This is our birthright. Oftentimes, the people who are the most loss become enlightened the quickest, for it is our struggle that makes us stronger. All it takes is a choice to change and that first step.

This meditation quiz is designed to be used as a starting point in our meditation and spiritual journey. Meditation is a chance to sit down and spend some quality time with ourselves so we can begin to understand our own mind. Using this meditation quiz is an excellent jumping off point for such inward exploration. We hope this meditation quiz can bring you some early and useful insights that can help guide you on your journey.

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Path to Peace How to Live Authentically in a Fake World

To live authentically, we have to know ourselves. To know ourselves, we have to spend a little time tuning out the influencers and tuning into our heart's intentions, values and instincts. This is how we go beyond the mind's thoughts and into our true calling in life.

We are being influenced everywhere we look, from the advertisements we see to the social media we consume. In today's podcast, I share some simple ways we can block out the noise, reconnect with ourselves, and start living in alignment so that we are less stressed, more focused, and confidently living the life of purpose that was meant for us.

In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month, my book, Digital Ego: A How-To Survival Guide for the Internet, is just $2.99. An important message for everyone, but a must read for the young people in your life.

Please enjoy other episodes where I share meditation techniques, tips and spiritual lessons from around the world for peaceful and stress-free living. Remember to subscribe to stay up-to-date.

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Is Consciousness a Creation of the Brain?

It appears to me that the brain is a creation of consciousness. I interpret the double-slit experiment to demonstrate that consciousness creates our physical reality. Every atom, and the space between, is infused with the underlying unifying field of consciousness, and it is brought forth from wave to matter when it interacts with our consciousness. And that universal, infinite, all-dimensional consciousness is a fundamental nature of our universe. No matter what gets created, whether it’s a painting or a universe, consciousness precedes creation. Only consciousness, being nonphysical and thus not existing in our physical universe, can preclude creation.

As Francis Crick, one of the two scientists who discovered the DNA double helix, once said, “An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going.”

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How to Move Past the Illusion of Separateness

From Path to Peace With Todd Perelmuter Newsletter

Being present isn’t just about being fully engaged and aware, although that is a part of it. It means getting out of our head and connecting to this bigger and broader universe. It’s about going beyond the words we hear, say and think. It’s seeing more than the objects in front of our faces. It is to be deeply connected with everything.

When we start to see relationships more than individuals, a deeper truth emerges. When we pay attention to the energy people carry with them more than the words they say or the persona they project, understanding arises. And when we peer deeper into this very moment, any illusion of separateness and division falls away. (This also helps in avoiding any emotional outbursts. More on how to manage your emotions in this podcast.)

The present moment is the doorway to oneness. It is the safe passage from which we can leave our traumas behind. It is the refuge that will free us from our difficult past and help us create a better future.

Our new film, Returning to Oneness, coming out May 5th on YouTube at 8:00 AM EST, shows a world of oneness that is just out of sight, but deeply felt in all of us. It reminds us that those problems we feel are so humongous, are tiny once we can see the bigger picture. There is a miraculous world of infinite magic just underneath our noses. May this film create the space and stillness within to see it.

 

Here’s what I want you to do this week:

Practice expanding your consciousness by seeing objects and people beyond their temporary appearance.

 

Instead of seeing a cup, see the process of the cup within it: the miners mining the raw materials, the shipping, the manufacturing, the global supply chain, the engineers who designed the factories and computer systems, the drivers and the store clerks and their families and ancestors. See where the cup ends up 10, 100, and 1000 years from now. See the burning stars that created the stuff that became the earth and the moon and your cup and yourself. All of this is within your tiny cup.

Don’t just think about all these things, see them, all at once. Expand your consciousness to the entire universe and to all of eternity. Become conscious of so much all at once that there is no room in your mind for thoughts, only awareness. This is what it means to glimpse enlightenment.

Start to see the whole life cycle of everything you see — the causes and conditions that go into it and the effects that will come out of it. The more we practice expanding our consciousness, the more we realize a deeper truth about reality: we are all one and we are all intimately connected. Very quickly we will start to see the impact our choices make, and we will inevitably create a better life and a better world.

Much love,
Todd

PS – In my latest YouTube video, I share what’s at the heart of toxic positivity, I discuss ways to respond to toxic positivity, and I share a more effective way to heal from hardship and how to help others heal as well.

Join 10,000 Mental Steps Challenge

You deserve happiness.Your loved ones deserve happiness.

Email Join Returning to Oneness | Short Film

Step out of the world you thought you knew and into the infinite oneness that is who you truly are.

The post How to Move Past the Illusion of Separateness appeared first on EastWesticism.

How to Reprogram Your Mind

From Path to Peace With Todd Perelmuter Newsletter

We live in the greatest time ever to be alive. We also live in the worst time ever to be alive.

Both statements are 100% true. This is why people on the news can argue endlessly. The question is, which world do you want to live in: the best or the worst? 

The world we live in all depends on where we choose to put our focus. It doesn’t matter if 99% of your life has been hard, you can put 100% of your focus on that 1%. This isn’t delusional. It’s consciously choosing happiness over misery. (More on how to deal with the negative experiences of life in my latest podcast.)

Every successful person has a delusionally high confidence in themselves. That story you have about yourself and the world, is either the rocket fuel for your dreams, or the sand in your engine. So you might as well choose the helpful story.

 

Here’s What I Want You To Do:

Write down every single negative thought that pops into your head over the course of the week — about yourself, your body, and the world. Then write down a better thought to replace it.

 

Our thoughts tend to look like this:
– Ugh, I hate work.

– I’ll never be able to overcome this obstacle.

– I am not good enough.

– I can’t turn my health around or get strong.

– I am so tired.

When they could look like this:

– I love having a reason to get out of bed.

– I love a challenge.

– I am the greatest.

– These bodies are self-healing machines, there is nothing I can’t heal, and I can get in the best shape of my life no matter what age I am or illness I have.

– I have boundless energy.

No one on earth deserves to have confidence and happiness more than you. There is absolutely nothing that prevents you from becoming over the moon in love with yourself and the world right now. The only thing stopping us is a bad habit we picked up over the years. And every habit can be broken. 

Much love,

Todd

P.S. I am sharing my favorite quotes from the book, Aloneness to Oneness, in this article.

And in my latest YouTube video, I share some simple ways we can unlock our creative power. When our creativity is flowing freely, we see options and possibilities everywhere. Instead of just reacting to the chaos of life, we become the conscious creators of our destiny.

Join 10,000 Mental Steps Challenge

You deserve happiness.Your loved ones deserve happiness.

Email Join The Art of Gratitude | Short Film

Gratitude is the most important human emotion because it alone determines the quality of our life. This film is a roadmap back to our grateful hearts.

The post How to Reprogram Your Mind appeared first on EastWesticism.

Recognizing And Addressing Unequal Relationships

From Path to Peace With Todd Perelmuter Newsletter

I heard a recent statistic that 27% of Americans are estranged from a close family member, and that number is likely far higher due to the stigma and shame around such difficult family situations. (More on how to survive a dysfunctional family in this podcast.)

Relationships can be messy. We do not live in a utopia that cares first and foremost about creating healthy, happy, compassionate people.

We can wish and hope all we want for people to change or for them to show us the love we’ve shown them. But this is a denial of reality.

We can give and give and give, but we are going to be betrayed, let down, and taken advantage of. We can either become like them, or we can rise above them.

 

This week I want you to do this:

Be your own source of love and support.

 

You know what a best friend or loving elder would tell you. Your inner wisdom knows what you need better than anyone else. Let go of how you expected life to be and open your arms to yourself. You are the love you need. So give yourself some intentional alone time to quiet your inner voice so you can hear your body’s intelligence speak through you.

Like the mighty redwoods, the higher we grow, the lonelier it gets. But we can plant seeds. We can nourish the like-minded people around us. We can put our efforts into helping others grow. We can stand tall and firm for the people interested in growing. And soon, we will find ourselves in a giant redwood forest of our own.

Much love,

Todd

P.S. As I look around and see so many people stressed, struggling, worrying and getting angry, I notice that there is one fundamental cause to this suffering. As intractable as this suffering may seem, there is actually a very easy and simple solution. In my latest YouTube video, I share what is causing the problems we see in the world, how we can remove that cause, and how we can shift our mindset to bring about the inner and outer peace we all seek.

Join 10,000 Mental Steps Challenge

You deserve happiness.Your loved ones deserve happiness.

Email Join The Art of Gratitude | Short Film

Gratitude is the most important human emotion because it alone determines the quality of our life. This film is a roadmap back to our grateful hearts.

The post Recognizing And Addressing Unequal Relationships appeared first on EastWesticism.

13 Best Social Media Addiction Quotes From Digital Ego Book

1. Just like the body is constantly eliminating toxins, the mind needs to as well. We need to give it time to rest, reflect, and find peace in the present moment.

2. Life will sometimes be exciting, and sometimes it’ll be uneventful. Both of these are just parts of life. We can either escape life, or we can embrace it.

3. When we are mindlessly taking our phone out, then we are training our brains subconsciously that the present moment is worthy of escape, that it’s not good enough.

4. Like rays of light coming from the sun, we are extensions of the universe, seemingly separate yet profoundly interconnected.

5. No amount of horsepower in our car, jewelry on our bodies, brand names on our clothing, will ever complete something that is already perfect and complete.

6. Happiness is not measured in likes or followers. It’s measured in smiles (and not the emoji kind).

7. On social media, everyone looks like they have a perfect life. And so, we compare ourselves to people and situations that don’t even exist. This is a freeing realization.

8. By lifting up others, we put them in a position where they can lift even more people up. Eventually, we can create a world where if we ever stumble and need a hand, someone will be there to lift us up too.

9. Time to reflect is so important and it is what keeps us sane. If we don’t digest what we’re mentally consuming, we’re going to have a mental indigestion.

10. Stop outsourcing so much of your joy and peace to what others think of you online.

11. This third ego — the digital ego — is typically always happy, always doing cool stuff, word choice is edited to perfection, and it’s sometimes more beautiful than we are because of these filters. But, it’s also much more dependent on the approval of others because its value and self-worth come from likes, follows, shares and views.

12. Part of mindfully using social media that is so important is not just being mindful of what you’re seeing, but it’s being mindful of what you’re not seeing, being mindful of what you don’t know.

13. There are so many people out in the world. Some will think good of us. Some will think bad of us. But there is only one person that really matters in that equation — ourself.

Become mindful of how you are using technology, how it makes you feel, and of the fact that you are creating these feelings because you are the one who has control over what you do. Take a digital detox, whenever needed, to reset your dopamine levels and to rebalance yourself.

More on how to take a digital detox and use social media mindfully in the book, Digital Ego. Available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle format.

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Addicted to Approval? Learn How to Overcome

From Path to Peace With Todd Perelmuter Newsletter

We all have a story about ourselves and our lives that plays on repeat in our mind. It may be negative, it may be positive, or it may be mixed. No matter what the story says, we tend to believe it and defend it at all cost. Even if it makes us miserable and insecure, we hold on tightly to it. It is our worldview, and if it were wrong our world would collapse.

If our mental narrative is negative, then we reject other people’s praise. If our story is causing us suffering, we will argue with the people who want to help us. (In my latest podcast episode, I talk about relationships, how to know when to give grace, when to create boundaries, and how when needed to walk away with peace and love.)

If our mental narrative is positive but delusional, we will suffer whenever anyone else deflates our ego. It will be an untenable, shaky confidence that will always need praise. We may think we are doing the right thing by forcing happy thoughts, but we will still be susceptible to the opinions of others.

The key is not to change our thoughts, but to change our mindset. If we want a million dollars, we don’t think to ourselves, “I have a million dollars,” over and over again. This will make us actually feel the lack more, and it will make us become disappointed, disillusioned, and disheartened that the million dollars didn’t come fast enough.

Instead, we need to feel gratitude for our journey of growth and evolution. On any journey, there can be flat tires, wrong turns and detours. But that doesn’t mean we’re not getting closer to where we want to be. And it doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the scenery and company along the way.

 

Here’s What I Want You to Do This Week:

For a few minutes in the morning and a few minutes at night, practice visualizing the life of your dreams. 

 

Visualize how it will feel to achieve your business, relationships, and family goals. See every detail of the life you want. And do this until you feel the gratitude for being on this journey, no matter where you happen to be along the way. Feel the confidence of what it’s like when you have everything you’ve been working towards. And stay in this mindset until a natural smile comes across your face. This is how we can have our future gratitude and confidence right now.

There is no mental difference between being grateful for our journey or for reaching our destination. There is no difference between feeling confident on our journey or feeling confident once we’ve reached our destination. In fact, it is gratitude and confidence that will ensure we will go further, reach greater heights than we could even imagine, have more enthusiasm and energy to get there, be fearless, and actually love the journey of life.

Much love,

ToddPS – In my latest YouTube video, I share the insights and lessons I learned during my 50-day meditation in the forest of New Zealand and how it changed me.

Join 10,000 Mental Steps Challenge

You deserve happiness.Your loved ones deserve happiness.

Email Join The Art of Gratitude | Short Film

Gratitude is the most important human emotion because it alone determines the quality of our life. This film is a roadmap back to our grateful hearts.

The post Addicted to Approval? Learn How to Overcome appeared first on EastWesticism.