Todd Perelmuter's Blog, page 20
May 9, 2024
Why You Need to Stop Delaying Your Happiness
The universe is in every atom. Every atom is the universe.
This moment is our entire life. Our entire life is this moment.
Do we give this divine moment the sacred attention it deserves? Or do we abandon and reject it as we pine for a long lost past or some imagined better future?
When we sacrifice this moment for a better future moment, we are only training our mind to escape and resist the here and now. Achievements last for only a brief moment. A runner is only at the finish line for a fraction of a second. If we can’t be happy during the journey, we will never be happy.
It doesn’t matter if we come in first place or last place. If we enjoy the journey, life will be good. Accomplishments and failures are both merely brief pit stops on our way to growth and personal evolution.
So what happens when we postpone our happiness? Is happiness greater than success, or the other way around? Will wealth bring us happiness? Which should we choose, success or happiness? I answer these questions and more in my latest podcast.
“There are a lot of people who sell success as the key to happiness. Everyday, our society says, “Don’t worry about happiness now. You can have that once you’ve made it.” And so people go their whole life waiting to be happy, only to find that happiness is not in their bank account. It’s not in their job title. They’ll miss their kids growing up, they’ll forget what their spouse looks like, and they’ll let stress and illness eat at them, all while searching for the wrong goal in life.”
— Excerpt from my latest book, Aloneness to Oneness, where I talk about how we can have both success and lasting happiness.
Here’s What I Want You to Do:
How we treat this moment is how we treat every moment. If we dread it, life becomes dreadful. If we love it, life becomes lovely. Pay close attention to how you speak to yourself about your duties and responsibilities. Try to welcome them with love. Get excited for what you normally resist. You’ll only have this moment once, so you might as well enjoy it.
No matter how bad life looks at any given moment, we can feel love. If we have only the clothes on our back, we can feel grateful. And if we can be present, we can be at peace.
In the book, Aloneness to Oneness, I go into detail about how we can show up for ourselves in this moment, show up for our loved ones, our community, and our planet. I discuss how we can develop the habit of happiness so that when the blessings in our life come to us, we will be able to truly appreciate them.
If you have read the book, please consider leaving a review. If you’re like me, reviews and ratings are invaluable for helping me find quality products and books. Your review has the power to help countless people on their journey to peace, presence and purpose.
Much love,
Todd
PS – Fear is not something we need to be afraid of. In fact, there is a wisdom in fear. The problem is that we are so afraid of fear that we look away, pretend it’s not there, and try to cover it up with addictions and distractions. In my latest YouTube video, I share how we can discover the wisdom fear is trying to tell us, how to face fear with courage, and how to stay at peace when life gets unpredictable.
Join 10,000 Mental Steps ChallengeYou deserve happiness.Your loved ones deserve happiness.
Email Join The Art of Gratitude | Short FilmGratitude 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 Why You Need to Stop Delaying Your Happiness appeared first on EastWesticism.
How to Become Really Good at Something
There is something that just about every human could benefit to learn. It is not easy. Not too many people can do it, but it may be the most important skill we can develop that will improve every aspect of our lives.
We need to learn how to learn with joy, strive with peace, and work hard on achieving big goals with total presence and effortlessness.
It may seem counterintuitive, but this is how we walk the middle path to prosperity without sacrificing our wellbeing. This is the egoless way to work on ourselves and our goals, while not being too hard on ourselves either. This is how we make work fun, enjoy the journey, and avoid burnout. (We are human beings, not corporate ladder climbers. We need rest to perform our best. And if our mind is always racing, eventually we will burn out. More on this here.)
Children are masters at this. When we are born, we don’t know anything and no one expects us to either. We are happy and excited to learn. But as we grow up, so do our egos. That is what prevents us from learning as easily as we used to.
We need to embrace once again that we are an idiot at something. Don’t run from it, run toward it. I am bad at piano and singing and learning new languages. But I love sucking so bad and recognizing my bruised ego, because I know that’s when I am growing the most. As David Goggins might say, “F@*k your ego.”
Humility is a muscle we can regularly exercise. It deflates our ego and makes learning fun again. We just need to become aware of the ego, recognize its manipulative nature and how it thinks it’s helping us but how it is really hurting us. Then we can choose not to listen or believe its story.
There are 5 obstacles to peace and happiness when other people around us are doing better, or when we are not doing as well as we’d like. I talk about how to overcome each of them so that nothing can stop us from living our best life in my podcast.
Here’s What I Would You Like to Do This Week:
Practice putting your ego aside. Ask someone for help, when you might otherwise have been embarrassed. Ask the “dumb” question in a meeting that everyone else is probably thinking. Take on a new challenge, whether it’s learning a language or instrument, getting back into art, exercise or meditation. Whatever your interest is that you’ve always wanted to get better at, whatever business idea or new expertise you wanted to develop but you felt afraid to take on, do it. Ask an expert if they’ll mentor you. You have very little to lose but a whole lot to gain. Only when we accept we know nothing can we learn anything.
Remember, spirituality and success are not mutually exclusive. We all need to provide for ourselves and our loved ones. But we also have spiritual needs. Here’s how we can have both.
Much love,
Todd
PS – In my latest YouTube video, I share why the mind tries to trap us, how we keep getting trapped in negativity and chaos, and some easy and practical tips for becoming free.
And
My podcast is now available on YouTube, because apparently that’s a thing now. Enjoy.
Join 10,000 Mental Steps ChallengeYou deserve happiness.Your loved ones deserve happiness.
Email Join The Art of Gratitude | Short FilmGratitude 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 Become Really Good at Something appeared first on EastWesticism.
How to Remove Fear From Mind And Heart
Don’t be afraid to sit alone with your thoughts and allow yourself to work through them. What you fear to be unbearable is not so scary. But we must face down the monsters so that we can conquer them. We must shine a light on the dark corners we wish were not there.
Suppression, repression, and distraction are most people’s favorite methods for dealing with stress and worries. Suppression is when we stuff down our emotions, often with substances. Repression is when we don’t even consciously know we’re suffering, which lets us look cheery but often leads to physical or mental health problems like chronic pain or bursts of anger. And distraction is when we will do anything to avoid our unpleasant thoughts and feelings, usually through activities that only end up further harming our mental peace. We can’t undo anxiety if we are anxiously trying to get rid of it, but we can cultivate a more positive mindset. More on how to do that in my latest video.
If we don’t know how to heal, these three methods become natural reactions to the heavy emotions we’re harboring. Subconsciously, we’d rather be angry, in pain, sick or numb instead of feeling sad or facing our fears. Instead of letting a painful past ruin the present, and instead of trying to run away from our inner monsters, let’s unleash the dragon slayer within.
Use stillness to find, stalk, and conquer your inner demons. Patience and stillness are the mark of any great assassin. Demons lurk in the chaos, they thrive in the darkness, and they feed on our fear. We must shine our light of consciousness on these vampires.
Here’s What I Would You Like to Do:
This week, do everything you normally do, but give yourself a minute or two of stillness before you do it. Let stillness arise before pulling out your phone, watching a show, going for a drive, starting work, eating food, etc… Check in with the mind and body to make sure there is no stress or tension. If there is any tension, breathe, smile and relax into that area. All fear, stress and tension are created by the mind. Only the mind can heal it.
It’s been a long and challenging and amazing ride, but now my new book is finally finished! Named after the film that sparked so many deep questions and discussions, my new book, Aloneness to Oneness, goes deep into the heart of who we are, why we are, and what this all means.
It’s a blueprint for stepping out of our separate, small, and sometimes lonely existence; and into the infinite, eternal oneness of the universe. Only when we live in duality does greed, jealousy, hatred, competition and comparison arise. But when we become one with everything, only love remains. I hope you enjoy it as much as I loved writing it.
Much love,
ToddPS – In our fast-paced world, it’s very easy to internalize the hyperspeed frenzy all around us. But this frantic pace is destroying our mental health, our relationships, and our lives. We may feel like we’re getting more done, but in truth that chaos comes at a price we will pay later. In my latest podcast, I talk about how to overcome impatience.
Join 10,000 Mental Steps ChallengeYou deserve happiness.Your loved ones deserve happiness.
Email Join Returning to Oneness | Short Spiritual FilmStep out of the world you thought you knew and into the infinite oneness that is who you truly are.
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The Fastest Way to Take Control of Your Life & Be Happy
You are the co-director of this movie called life. It’s you and the universe. Like any great co-director, there’s got to be a little give and take. Naturally, we want a good relationship with our co-director. We’ve got to be open to their ideas, but we also have our own vision we need to respect and honor.
Oftentimes, we fall into one of two extremes: victim or control freak. As victims, we feel helpless and we can easily fall into depression and pessimism. This does a disservice to our co-director and to the movie of our life.
Control freaks are just no fun to work with. They become rigid, angry, and their partners will not feel safe sharing their ideas. The filmmaking process suffers and so does the movie, not to mention the entire cast and crew.
Extremes are easy. Finding balance in the middle takes work, but this middle path will lead to the most rewarding experience. The best films are collaborations, where partners inspire each other to be greater than the sum of their parts.
Every great partnership is built on trust. I learned very young that even though I wanted to be in the NBA, the universe had other ideas for me. To find our path, we must listen to our heart but also trust when the universe is trying to tell us something. Luckily our co-director, the universe, is very wise. Like Stanley Kubrick level genius.
There will be many guides, sages, and experienced travelers we’ll meet who will help us along on our way. This YouTube video is what I have learned from my journey, and I hope it helps you on yours.
Here’s What I Would Like You to Do This Week:
Start to see everything in your life as a sign from the universe. If your plans get derailed, instead of panicking, stay open to the new direction your life will take. Stay open to new opportunities that appear when one door closes.
Steven Spielberg said about working on Jaws that even though they had a very small budget and a robotic shark that kept breaking, every obstacle was an opportunity to come up with a creative solution that made the movie even better. So instead of showing a fake-looking shark, they just played that scary music and let the audience imagine a scary shark. This was a much more terrifying experience for the audience because the fear of sharks comes from the fact that we can’t see them under water. This is how we can approach every challenge in our own lives as well. To find creative solutions, we have to stay positive, curious and open.
It may sound silly to look for signs and synchronicities to decide our life choices, but this has never failed me. There have even been studies done that show when people follow what they believe to be their predetermined destiny, they’re more likely to achieve their dreams because of their unshakable faith in themselves and the universe.
Whatever you do, you were meant to do it. Infinite factors go into everything we do, and our little choices are just one of those countless factors that are based on a billion other factors. So don’t waste time worrying or regretting. Only you will live your unique life, so make it an exciting one. Luckily, you’ve got a great co-director.
I share more about becoming the co-director of your life in my new book, Aloneness to Oneness: 22 Life Lessons to Change the Way You See the World, now available on Amazon.
Much love,
Todd
PS – Someone at some time in your life has broken your trust, not cared for you the way you deserved, abused or taken advantage of you. In my latest podcast episode, I share 3 ways to overcome betrayal trauma.
Join 10,000 Mental Steps ChallengeYou deserve happiness.Your loved ones deserve happiness.
Email Join Returning to Oneness | Short Spiritual FilmStep out of the world you thought you knew and into the infinite oneness that is who you truly are.
The post The Fastest Way to Take Control of Your Life & Be Happy appeared first on EastWesticism.
May 8, 2024
How to Practice Gratitude When You Don’t Feel Grateful
Gratitude is like a light switch. When it’s on, it’s easy to see all of the blessings in our lives. When it’s off, we have nothing and are lost in darkness.
So how do we turn on that light switch of gratitude when we don’t like what’s going on in our lives? To flip that switch, we have to do three things.
First, we have to make sure the power is on in the house. To do that, we have to pay the bills and make sure our expenses are in order. What this means is, we have to take control of the things in our life that are in our control, and accept what we cannot. If we’re unhappy with work, relationships or where we are in our lives, what can we change? Where can we redirect our energy? And what can we do today to get us where we want to be tomorrow? No matter what we hope to achieve in our lives, now is the perfect time to start. (More on this in my podcast.)
Second, we need a working light bulb. This means we need to shine our light of consciousness so bright that it breaks through our gloomy, cloudy thoughts. No matter our situation, when we can see it beyond our negative mental story, problems disappear and we are left with only the beautiful symphony of life playing all around us.
Third, we need a backup generator for when the power does go down. This means developing a practice and habit of gratitude that will carry us through moments of doubt and hopelessness. Gratitude truly is a muscle, and the more we exercise it, the stronger it gets. When it becomes stronger than fear, it becomes unshakable.
Here’s what I would like you to do to pump up those gratitude muscles:
I have created this simple Daily Gratitude Habits checklist with 20 ways to practice daily gratitude. Make all 20 steps into a habit so you don’t even need the checklist. Watch the film, The Art of Gratitude . Whenever you find yourself lost in the darkness, come back to this film to light your way back.Love,
Todd
Join 10,000 Mental Steps ChallengeYou deserve happiness.Your loved ones deserve happiness.
Email Join The Art of Gratitude | Short FilmGratitude 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 Practice Gratitude When You Don’t Feel Grateful appeared first on EastWesticism.
When Future Seems Dark, Uncertain And Scary
What can we do when the future looks scary, uncertain, or dark? The same thing we need to do when the future looks amazing and bright — discover the peace within us right now. How we feel now determines how we feel about the future, not the other way around.
No matter what is troubling us — whether it’s loss, regret, stress or hopelessness — we all have the ability to relax, to breathe, to close our eyes and let it all out. We can take a moment when our heads are swirling like a tornado, and hard as it might be at first, we can watch our breath. We can watch our thoughts. We can check for that tension in our body and send a little love and a smile to that area.
When the future we always dreamed of is not even close to coming to true, this is what we have to do. (New podcast episode)
Whenever I feel like the world is knocking me over, I sit up straight, close my eyes, and take some deep, slow, conscious breaths. I try to stay focused on my breath, but when my mind wanders, I don’t get upset. I just return to my breath. I pay attention to my mind as it starts to wander, and I gently and lovingly keep it focused on my breath (focusing on a mantra works amazing for beginners if the breath is too subtle. Try “Om” or any other mantra you like).
Simply sitting up straight when the world is weighing so heavily on us is such a powerful act. When our mind is trying to depress us and push us down, sitting up is the quiet and confident way of saying to the world, “You won’t knock me down, you will not defeat me, and I will rise up and face anything with peace.” By cultivating this mindset, we truly can create any future we wish. Here’s more on that in my new YouTube video.
Here’s what I would like you to do this week
Zoom out. Yes this moment may be bad, but will it last forever? No. Everything changes. The future only reflects our present moment mindset. If we believe in ourselves, our future will surely look brighter. Play the long game, think about life like the stock market, with many ups and downs but overall moving up, and there’s no need to panic
Don’t carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. Just this moment. No matter what is happening in or around your life, face it with presence and peace. I talk more about it in detail in chapter 6 and chapter 14 of my book, Finding Your True Self. I even shared a meditation there that teaches how to channel your negative energy into something positive.
Let’s start meditating. If you are new and find it tough, do it for 2 minutes, but don’t skip it. If you can do it longer, go for it. Make it a habit. Here’s a guided morning meditation for you. If you add 30 seconds every day, by day 36 you’ll be up to 20 minutes without even noticing it. This daily practice is how we will turn these awakening concepts into a permanent way of being.
Much love,
Todd
PS: For all those who have joined the challenge a little late, I am sharing the previous 10,000 Mental Steps Challenges here so you can catch up with us.
Join 10,000 Mental Steps ChallengeYou deserve happiness.Your loved ones deserve happiness.
Email Join You Are This MomentIt doesn’t matter what happened yesterday. It doesn’t matter what will happen tomorrow. We are not our mistakes, nor are we our successes. We are this one, eternal, priceless moment.
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Why does Life Suck So Much? And What to Do?
I won’t lie. Sometimes, life sucks. When I went hiking in Nepal’s Himalayan Mountains, there were many very hard climbs, followed by very easy descents. This is the nature of any journey: there will be constant ups and downs. The more we understand this, the more we can enjoy the journey. Here’s the secret to facing good news and bad news without getting swept by our emotions.
We think that it is the negative events in our life that upset us, but this is not so. It is our desire for positive events, and our aversion to negative events, that cause our suffering. It’s not unfairness that makes us unpeaceful. It’s our desire for fairness that disturbs our peace. Here’s how to be at peace despite the seemingly unfairness of life.
If we are to stay peaceful and calm during the downs, we need to first observe how strong desire has swept us away. Desire often consumes us and we become blind to ourselves and the world around us.
We see this happen the most at airports. We’re so close to our dream vacation, we’ve worked too hard for too long, and all we can think about is a pina colada on the beach. Then, our flight is delayed or canceled. That beach is now gonna be delayed by a few hours. That’s when we see those poor ticket counter employees get abused like I’ve never seen. It’s not the flight cancelation that upsets us though, it’s the strong desire to be on that beach.
This week, I want you to keep those desires and aversions in check. It’s ok to have goals, to have plans, and to book that amazing vacation. Desire has nothing to do with what your life looks like from the outside. It’s all to do with the level of peace we have on the inside, and whether things go our way, or don’t.
Here’s What I Want You To Do This Week:
Take an inventory of times you’re most frustrated, and see what underlying aversion or desire may be there.Visualize how you would respond to that frustrating moment in the most ideal way. Is it patient and calm, or screaming and embarrassing? Usually, with some distance from the situation, it’s easy to see what our higher mind would do. The more we visualize, the more we will that optimal response becomes automatic.
So give that a try, keep up the assignments from week 1 and 2 until they become a habit, and great work! I love hearing from so many of you how this has already been helping. Have a great week.
Much love,
Todd
PS – If that inner voice is making your life tough, here’s how you can make it a little quieter, a little more pleasing to be with, and a little less like that guy at work who never shuts up and is always complaining.
Join 10,000 Mental Steps ChallengeYou deserve happiness.Your loved ones deserve happiness.
Email Join You Are This MomentIt doesn’t matter what happened yesterday. It doesn’t matter what will happen tomorrow. We are not our mistakes, nor are we our successes. We are this one, eternal, priceless moment.
The post Why does Life Suck So Much? And What to Do? appeared first on EastWesticism.
May 6, 2024
Can We Let Our Emotions Decide Our Behavior?
Nearly all of human behaviour is conditioned, sometimes by society, sometimes by our families, and sometimes by our own unique experiences. These behaviors are conditioned through rewards and punishments. How a behavior makes us feel determines whether we continue that behavior. And while a lot of conditioning is well-intentioned, sometimes, especially when there’s been trauma, we learn to internalize stress even though we are perfectly safe.
But, we can unlearn trauma responses and we can create new, healthy emotional responses. Most of the time, our conditioned emotional responses guide our behavior. But when we can learn to witness our emotions, we can accept them and we can choose a course of action that is in alignment with our values and intentions, rather than be a slave to the whims of our emotions. Sometimes those emotions will be our intuition telling us to make a change, and sometimes it will be a fear-based survival instinct based on unhealed trauma. Only when we quiet the mind and look clearly will we be able to know the difference. And that, like everything else, just takes time and practice.
Join 10,000 Mental Steps ChallengeYou deserve happiness.Your loved ones deserve happiness.
Email JOIN The Art of Gratitude | Short FilmGratitude 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.
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May 3, 2024
Path to Peace How to Master Your Emotions
Mastering your emotions is much like mastering a foreign language. At first, you will feel you are not making any progress. For some time, it will take a great deal of sustained effort to translate basic sentences in your head. But eventually, it it will seep into your subconscious and you will realize you are fluent. And every day you practice, your skill will grow and grow.
In today's podcast, I share simple techniques to practice mastering your emotions. I discuss what can cause a person to become emotional, how to keep your cool, and why doing this one thing can make you not just the master of your emotions, but the master of your life as well.
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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April 30, 2024
Can Gardening Replace Meditation?
Q: Dear Todd, I have noticed that I am most often in the moment when I working in my garden or when I am drawing. How can I extend this?
TODD ANSWERS: You bring up the wonderful distinction between meditative activities and meditation. While meditative activities force us to be present while doing that thing, meditation is the practice of training our mind to always be present.
Join 10,000 Mental Steps ChallengeYou deserve happiness.Your loved ones deserve happiness.
Email JOIN The Art of Gratitude | Short FilmGratitude 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.
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