M.J. Blehart's Blog, page 103

Pathwalking 198

It is of the utmost importance that we be aware of how and what we communicate to people.

Whether we are talking about indirect forms, direct talk or body language, communication can make a tremendous difference in how we feel, and as such how we are directing our lives.

We are currently living in a society positively obsessed with communication. The amazing thing about that, though, is how impersonal and thoughtless this idea has become.

I know that historically this argument has been made before. ‘Why get together when we can pick up the phone and chat?’ has become ‘why call when we can e mail and text?’ But even that is not entirely what I am talking about.

In addition to a major lack of accountability societally, we have ceased to have real, honest communications. We have talking heads, we have people spouting slogans and propaganda and telling outright lies rather than communicating. We have become reliant on text and e mail and utterly impersonal modes of communication because they are convenient, but they are cold and one dimensional.

I believe that this takes matters even further in that we have become ok with half-assed communications. We find it easy to send that text or tap out that e mail and neglect that they only convey words. Communication is not just words, it is body language and emotion, which while a good writer can convey this in mere words, still lacks overall.

People whom we see ‘in power’ are beginning to communicate in the same manner as the texts and e mails. Have you ever heard so many people convey so many pointless and meaningless platitudes with so little sincerity and such obvious disdain? I believe this is because what looked great to them on paper is garbage when they attempt real communications.

Regular people like you and me enjoy modern conveniences. You are reading this on a computer or a tablet or even a phone, and I can certainly spin my words to convey my emotions, but this is still indirect and one-dimensional. If we were holding a conversation you’d see my body language, and hear and possibly feel my emotions.

I am not discarding e mails and texts as forms of communication. They really are extremely helpful and very useful. The point I am getting at here is that we need to do better at remembering what communicating with each other can entail.

Are you having a bad day? Am I having a bad day? Are you angry? Am I upset? Are you having a good day? Am I happy? Do we communicate about how we are feeling and what we are thinking directly, or do we beat about the bush? This is the important part of communication that is most neglected.

I can send a text message that says simple, ‘hi’. Now if, after an hour, I get no response, I can do one of several things. I can presume, huh, maybe you’re busy. I can guess that you may be in a situation where you are unable to respond to my text, or you are not with your phone, or what-have-you. No harm, no foul.

However, sometimes we start to see worst case scenarios. Maybe you are doing something I would not want to know about, so you are ignoring me. Maybe you are displeased with me, thus not responding. Maybe you are hurt, or lost, or something is wrong.

Have you done this? I know that I have. We humans, though some of us try pretty hard to deny this, are emotional creatures. We also have imaginations, and sometimes they run wild. Because the impersonal one-dimensional communication didn’t elicit a response, suddenly we have an issue which you are completely unaware of because that issue is wholly in my mind.

Our society is not overly fond of asking questions. All you have to do is to look at the so-called people of faith whom you cannot question lest they will do nothing but shout you down. Questions are not welcome, because seeking truth and having discussion is unwelcome against blind faith and arrogant contradiction.

We as individuals, however, can choose to buck this trend. We can and should ask questions. I am not talking about big questions, I am talking about simple ones. How do I feel? Why do I feel like I am feeling? How do YOU feel? What can I do to help you?

We have different levels of communications, and we need to learn to better employ them when it comes to how we choose to live our lives. Texts and e mails are great, but lack emotional context. Verbal communications over the phone convey thoughts and ideas and emotions, but not body language. Skype and actual personal interaction can give us the full experience, and convey the most direct and meaningful communications.

No matter what forms our communications take, we need to presume less and ask more. Assumptions lack in anything but speculation. Ask questions and you will have answers to give you understanding. This applies not just with communications between people, but even with ourselves.

In Pathwalking, as you choose your own way in this world, you have to communicate with yourself. When you do better at communicating with yourself, your ability to communicate with others improves too. Do you make assumptions about your own feelings, your own thoughts and your own actions? Granted, sometimes that may be true, but when you realize that you likely work to correct it. So why make assumptions about the feelings, thoughts and actions of others?

It is of the utmost importance that we be aware of how and what we communicate not just to other people, but to ourselves. If we have better communications, I think we can have more productive, better and happier lives overall.

How do you communicate with yourself and others?

 

This is the one-hundred ninety eighth entry in my series. These weekly posts are specifically about walking along the path of life, and my personal desire to make a difference in this world along the way. Feel free to re-blog and share.  Thank you for joining me.

The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available in print and for your Kindle.

Positivity: Change the Scenery

Sometimes you need a change of scenery.

This can be a small process, or it can be rather immense, depending on the time and situation. A change of scenery, however slight, can go a long ways towards building Positivity.

This can be a simple thing. Clean off your desk, rearrange your furniture, change out your décor, look at some digital images you have on your computer or phone or on the internet, reposition and move about the small things around you that you can.

This can be simple but involve more movement. Get up and take walk. Go look out a window, go stand in the sun, go stand in the rain, get up and stretch. Go grab a cup of coffee, go chat with a neighbor for a few minutes. Go pet a cat or dog. Just do something small to shift your environment.

This can involve more time and effort. Go for a hike, go to a movie, go see a concert or a play, take a drive to look at the foliage, go to the gym, go for a swim, take a walk around your neighborhood, go for a bike ride, go eat lunch at a park, find and hug a tree.

This can be much more involved. Take a trip somewhere other than where you call home. Go on an extended walkabout. Fly across an ocean. Drive across the country. Follow a pilgrimage route. Start learning something that you have never done before.

Of course, this can also be rather drastic. Move across the country. Quit your job and move to Europe. Sell everything you own and relocate and totally start over somewhere new.

Whether subtle or drastic, a change of scenery, literal or figurative, can make a huge difference towards your Positivity. The rote routine can be mind numbing, and it can frustrate and infuriate and lead you towards negativity in your world. An environmental shift, a change of scenery can really clear cobwebs and help you gain new focus and perspective.

It’s amazing how a subtle change of scenery can shift your mood, and help you to find more positivity.

I know that sometimes we get stuck in a situation where this is difficult. Finding a subtle change can go a long ways towards altering how you are feeling, and finding and building Positivity. Subtle change can also help prevent unwanted and drastic changes down the line.

Finding positivity is not hard, it just requires action. Knowing that you can change your scenery, whether subtly or drastically, you can shift how you are feeling. When we actively do things that will change our surroundings, we take more control over our emotions, and we empower ourselves. When we feel empowered, we often spread that feeling to others around us, and as such can build more positive feelings. We can use the positive feelings this generates to dissolve negative feelings. When we take away negative feelings, we open up space to let in positive feelings, and that is something we can be grateful for. Gratitude leads to happiness. Happiness is the ultimate positive attitude. Positive attitude begets positive energy, and that is always a good thing.

 

This is the eighty-ninth entry of my Positivity series.  It is my hope these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone.  Feel free to share, re-blog and spread the positivity.

Pathwalking 197

Hindsight is not always twenty-twenty.

We often look to the past, look to what has come before, and we think we see it in perfect clarity, now, after all that has occurred.

But in truth, more often than we probably realize, hindsight gets colored by nostalgia, by wistfulness, by a sense that it was oh-so-good and can’t ever be that good again, but it really should be.

The past is past. Period. What was is done, gone, and no more. Yes, we can get nostalgic for “simpler, happier times” as we may think we remember them. But have you ever noticed how remembering those times we ignore the less salient aspects of them?

I have been doing medieval reenactment for more than twenty years. I enjoy getting dressed up in the garb of a long-past era. We celebrate some cool activities and ceremonies and arts and sciences. Sometimes we joke about having been born in the wrong era, even.

What we are ignoring, however, was the vast number of people that lived in poverty, the horrific, untreated diseases that wiped out an unbelievable amount of the population, discrimination and hatred and religious intolerance that led to crusades across two continents, and a truly massive gulf between the rich and the poor.

It’s fun to play in the positive aspects of a bygone era. Lots of different reenactors out there spending weekends being someone from a long-past time.

In our everyday lives, however, we need to let the past stay in the past, and we need to focus on the now. This is how we can choose the paths we want to take, and manifest the life we want to have.

Looking back, we often see a rose colored view of what was. Yes, sometimes hindsight is twenty-twenty in how we learn what we should not have done. Sometimes the lesson learned allows us to see completely clearly how to avoid erring in the same manner in the now, and that aspect of twenty-twenty hindsight serves us well.

It is all too easy to get caught up in looking to the past for the good, inspiring things that have happened in our lives, and wistfully wish for the same in the now, and the future.

This gets slightly more complicated when we recognize that who we are right now, at this very moment, is a product of who we were. Yes, really.

What I was thinking about, how I was perceiving myself last month, last week, yesterday goes into making me the person I am today. What and how I thought of myself consistently over an unspecified amount of past time is what makes me who I am at this exact moment in time.

How does that work? If you manifest your life based on a combination of thought, feeling and intentional actions it only logically goes to follow that the you in existence right this moment was made from material in the past.

That being the case, it makes very little sense to use materials of the past, such as old thoughts and feelings and actions, in present awareness to make the future you. That’s not to say you can’t take lessons from your past to better build the future with present awareness…the caution is to not try to go back to what was.

Because the past needs to remain in the past, it is in our best interest in the here-and-now to create something new for the future. Nostalgia is all well and good, but you can’t live off of it, and you can’t bring it back because it will not be like it was before.

Certain members of our society are obsessed with the notion of remaking our world to be as it was before. They want to go back to a time some fifty or sixty years ago in a world they think was happier, simpler, fuller of faith and family and goodness and wholesomeness. What they are ignoring is the rather massive negative aspects of that era, such as the vast inequality, the fear mongering, xenophobia, racism and other ugly truths.

We can learn from the past, but we cannot return to it. Nor should we. Every day our world changes, most often subtly, but from time to time drastically. Individually, we may each be a product of our past thoughts, feelings and actions, but in the here-and-now we can be conscious of these and choose today who we will be tomorrow.

Now if I am perfectly content with who I am right here and now, then I should probably continue to use these same thoughts and emotions and actions. But if I want something different of my life, then I need to use this moment in the here-and-now to shift what I am thinking, how I am feeling and the actions I am intentionally taking therein.

Why is this always so complicated? Truth is, it’s not. Sometimes it is certainly easier to just let life happen, and to not take control of the things that allow us to choose the life we actually want. Mindfulness and awareness can require some extra focus, but the reward is that if we are discontent with our present circumstances we can work on changing them for tomorrow.

“Time is the reef upon which all our frail mystic ships are wrecked.” Noel Coward’s mystic Madame Arcati utters this phrase in the play Blithe Spirit, and it houses one central truth. All of our ideas, all of our plans and goals and intentions will crash upon our personal perceptions of time. When we accept this truth, we have a better ability to understand the importance of present awareness in choosing our paths and manifesting our personal destinies.

Hindsight is not always twenty-twenty. The past is past, and though it goes into making our now, this moment we have the ability to use our awareness to better create ourselves for tomorrow. Pathwalking is choice, and choice empowers us to find what we want for our lives.

Are you aware of yourself in the here-and-now?

 

This is the one-hundred ninety seventh entry in my series. These weekly posts are specifically about walking along the path of life, and my personal desire to make a difference in this world along the way. Feel free to re-blog and share.  Thank you for joining me.

The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available in print and for your Kindle.

Positivity: Choose Wisely

You can choose to contribute to the positive or the negative on the internet.

How come we spend so much mental, physical and emotional energy on negativity? What is it about tragedy, horror, loss, terror and other upsetting things that we give them so much attention?

Somewhere along the way our society became obsessed with the idea of undoing a thing once its been done. We put our attention into removing, eliminating and stopping the negative things after they have already been made manifest.

We focus on the awful things we don’t want. School shootings, terrorism, fear mongering, misogyny, corruption, greed, disease and disaster and the like. We share the images, the ludicrous quotes, the hatred and fear and anger and rage spread like wildfire between us.

I recognize the importance of being informed. But there is a difference between being informed about these bad things and being swallowed by them. When our energy, our focus and attention goes to all these awful horrible no-good things, we empower them while disempowering ourselves.

Choose what you want to share out there. Why make a bad thing worse? Instead of demanding we undo the terrible things we see, why don’t we instead put our attention towards creating better things? Focus on peace not war. Abundance not lack. Love not fear. Good not bad.

Even when I post a rant about social matters, I work very hard not to just add more negativity to it. I try to find positive, proactive solutions rather than another reaction to things that are largely out of my control. Sometimes it is easier to destroy than to build, I understand that…but building creates new things, new opportunities and is literally constructive rather than destructive.

We all have hot-button issues. We all have things we see that really get us angry. We all have our own beliefs, and some of them are diametrically opposed. Historically, see how much more we gain when we build than when we destroy. The internet connected the entire globe, and thus far we seem to prefer to use it to spread hate and fear and anger and negativity rather than love, comfort, happiness and positivity.

We can change that. We have the power to choose what we put out there. Do I really want to share more negativity, more things that make me and everyone else unhappy? I know that I don’t, which is why I seek some positivity every week. This is MY choice to try and spread positive energy across the internet.

What do you choose?

Finding positivity is not hard, it just requires action. Knowing that when you choose to spread negative things instead of positive ones you manifest less good and more bad, you have the opportunity to choose. When we actively work to choose to put our focus on positive rather than negative things, we empower ourselves. When we feel empowered, we often spread that feeling to others around us, and as such can build more positive feelings. We can use the positive feelings this generates to dissolve negative feelings. When we take away negative feelings, we open up space to let in positive feelings, and that is something we can be grateful for. Gratitude leads to happiness. Happiness is the ultimate positive attitude. Positive attitude begets positive energy, and that is always a good thing.

 

This is the eighty-eighth entry of my Positivity series.  It is my hope these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone.  Feel free to share, re-blog and spread the positivity.

Pathwalking 196

Energy is the root of everything.

Everything you can see, touch and experience begins with energy. That is what we are at our ultimate core; this is what everything in the universe begins with.

Because of this fact, energy can be neither created nor destroyed, it simply changes form. Some forms are visible, some are not. Energy can be transmuted and manipulated to achieve different things at various times, but is always present.

Science explains the universe in this manner. So do most religions and spiritual ideals. The difference between these concepts is language. Beyond that it’s a matter of approach and understanding.

Working with unseen forces to transmute energy into reality, for some, is far-fetched. Magic. New age hooky-spooky mumbo-jumbo. An impossible dream championed by people who are way out there.

In reality, we wield that sort of power for more frequently than we realize. Our thoughts, when we mix them with our feelings and our actions DO create our reality. However, it is far easier to not take direct control of these things and to simply let them happen.

I know that I fall into my own routines. I have patterns I repeat subconsciously, and in letting the patterns carry me along – change, when it does come, comes slowly.

Except there have been times where I have broken my patterns and routines and taken a different path. I have made a choice or choices to directly focus my attention, my intentions, and to work on putting my thoughts, emotions and actions into manifesting something I wanted.

I healed from injuries because my entire focus was on total recovery and healing. I was able to acquire a car when I saw no actual means to the end because I put my entire focus onto it simply happening. I had a relationship with a lover because I put the focus and energy into creating the relationship.

This is one of the key factors of this process. Manifesting what you want from the universe is not about things, it’s usually about feelings. Things won’t bring us happiness and good feelings, it actually works the other way around. Happiness and good feelings will help us bring about the things.

When I was working on healing from injuries I didn’t get depressed or upset or angry about the process. I envisioned nothing but total recovery, complete healing. I felt how good that would make me feel, how happy I would be when everything was returned to normal and I was whole again. No alternative, I would allow for no doubt.

When and if I had moments of doubt, because I am only human and that’s how we are, I didn’t allow the negativity to linger. I accepted it for what it was, I let it happen, but then I let it pass.

Fast forward to my life as it is today. Knowing what I know, experiencing what all I have experienced, I still get caught up in the minutiae of the process. I have forgotten that the things I am trying to manifest are not what will make me happy, I need to find happiness within if I want to manifest these things.

It’s all a complete load. You’re full of it. We all experience this life differently. A lot of people know what they know and only believe in the things they can see and touch and feel. They might accept the premise that energy is the root of all, but they do not believe they can be empowered to move that energy.

All of us have this power. We are all able to change our world, to manifest our lives. Unfortunately, we also live in a world where we are frequently disempowered. We are fed streams of negative energy, we see lack and disaster and horror and pain and suffering far more than we are shown abundance, achievement, love, pleasure and relief. We see complaint more than we see praise. We see blame more than we see taking responsibility.

Everything is energy. We do not need to be unhappy, we do not need to be dismayed by troubling visions. We have the power to change this energy, and to change the negative to the positive.

I am putting a greater focus on the things I want, rather than letting my attention by drawn to the things I don’t want. I am working on remembering that the things I want will not be where I find happiness and joy, but rather happiness and joy will bring me the things I want.

Everything at its core is energy. Everything. We are transmitting and receiving energy all the time. This may seem like it’s rather a daunting concept, but the truth is that we can have far more control of the kind of energy we give and receive, and ultimately empowerment. We can improve our lots in life, we can be how we choose to be.

While everything began from some sort of null space, none of this can be formed in the vacuum. An incredible number of scientific and spiritual factors drew all the energy together that formed each and every one of us, and all the things we are aware of. We have cumulative experiences and the capacity for growth and learning that can be used to choose how we give and receive the energies of the world around us. We are not merely the play things of the energy that makes everything up, we can control it. We are so empowered.

Science and religion and spiritual practices all express this concept, just with different languages and approaches. No matter what you do or do not ascribe to, you are empowered to manifest your own destiny. Be aware of what you are thinking, what you are feeling and what actions you are taking from there, because you can take control and choose your own path to walk.

Energy is the root of everything. Do you know how much more power we have than we choose to wield for our own betterment?

 

This is the one-hundred ninety sixth entry in my series. These weekly posts are specifically about walking along the path of life, and my personal desire to make a difference in this world along the way. Feel free to re-blog and share.  Thank you for joining me.

The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available in print and for your Kindle.

Positivity: Mood Changers

Lots of different things can change your mood.

As such, there are countless options to build more and greater positivity.

I find that if I wake up stiff or sore, if the clouds in the sky feel oppressive, or if posts across social media are getting me down, I have a lot of different options to change my mood and to alter my feelings.

What works for me might not work the same for you, but I think there are a number of basic ideas like attitude shifters that can help us reclaim a positive attitude. These are some other mood changers I try to employ:

Music. There is nothing quite like music to alter how I am feeling. I find that when I am writing I love to listen to movie scores and Russian classical works. On a road trip I sing along to something. There is nothing like the power of music to change how you feel. One note of caution – music can also bring you down, so mind what you choose when you are trying to generate positivity.

Light. I am addicted to sunlight. I crave it like a plant. I love the warmth of the sun on my skin, it makes me feel happy and connected to the world. Sometimes just having lights or candles lit can really go a long ways towards making me feel good, so I need to remember there is no need to be in a dim space. But the converse to that is:

Dark. Sometimes there is nothing more comforting than finding a dark space in which to be alone. In the dark as I close my eyes to meditate I can better focus on manifestation, on my heart beat, on clearing away random thoughts that are obscuring my path. This is not the murky light in a room on a cloudy or rainy day, this is almost sensor-depriving darkness I am giving voice to here. In a literal void you can choose to find and experience much positivity.

Water. Some people love to soak in the tub. Swimming can be liberating, as you nearly fly through the water. Standing beneath a steaming shower can free your muscles and relieve aches and stiff joints. Zen practices often use the idea of flowing water for how life moves, and it is rather apropos, because the unseen energy that everything is made of at its core flows like water, too. Water can be an incredible restorative, and a great positivity conductor.

Touch. Even adults need security blankets of some kind or other. Touch can seriously alter your mood. The sensation of soft fabrics on your skin, the cooling breeze of a fan, a hug, a caress, a kiss. Touch can be a powerful mood changer, and we all need contact from time to time to reassure us, to connect us to the rest of humanity.

These are just a couple ideas we can all use to change our moods. Changing our moods away from negativity to positivity can go a longs ways to finding happiness.

Finding positivity is not hard, it just requires action. Knowing that there are things we can do to change our moods, we can work with this to help us feel good when we are not. When we actively work on changing the mood we are in, we empower ourselves. When we feel empowered, we often spread that feeling to others around us, and as such can build more positive feelings. We can use the positive feelings this generates to dissolve negative feelings. When we take away negative feelings, we open up space to let in positive feelings, and that is something we can be grateful for. Gratitude leads to happiness. Happiness is the ultimate positive attitude. Positive attitude begets positive energy, and that is always a good thing.

 

This is the eighty-seventh entry of my Positivity series.  It is my hope these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone.  Feel free to share, re-blog and spread the positivity.

Pathwalking 195

What am I afraid of?

How come I constantly find myself uncertain, unsure and lost? Why can’t I break out of this pattern?

I know how this goes, and yet I still find that I cannot get out of my own way. I am afraid I will disappoint. I am afraid of disapproval. I am afraid of letting people down. I am afraid to succeed. I am afraid to fail.

Fear is the loudest message being broadcast to us. Every single day we are inundated with messages about the things we need to be afraid of.

Fear foreigners. Fear the rich. Fear the poor. Fear disease. Fear the unknown. Fear the known. Fear that guy. Fear this guy. Be afraid, because when you are afraid we can control you.

I have mentioned many times that I suffer from very abstract fears. I am not afraid of tangible things, I am fearful of intangibles. Fear leads me to anger, and now my mind is in darkness and I dig myself deeper and deeper into a pit of despair that is VERY hard to escape from.

I have been practicing Pathwalking for nearly four years now. In the process I have experienced some of the greatest highs I could imagine. My life has been colorful, it has been interesting, and it has really, honestly been good. I have experienced largely positive changes in my world, and I am so immensely grateful for that fact that I can barely conjure the proper words to express it.

Yet underneath it all there has been a current of disassociation. I question whether I really know what I am doing, or if I am a fake. Do I have any actual knowledge and experience, or am I just making this up as I go along? When everyone else figures out I am full of it and I haven’t the foggiest idea about what I am talking about, will they just abandon me or will they seek to destroy me in the process?

Have I actually learned anything, or am I just spinning my wheels? I need to really get ahold of my emotional state, and I need to stop letting that sense of dread, that feeling of inadequacy rule my emotions. I have done this before, I have manifested many things in my life. This needs to have the same importance, and be given the same attention so that I can create it too.

There are two questions that are utterly fundamental to my life whether I am walking my own path or not. Who am I? What do I want?

Who am I? We are not just these meat suits running around, working jobs, connecting with other meat suits and directly experiencing this world. We go way beyond that, we are at our core energy. EVERYTHING is energy, which is why all are one.

Each of us has carved out a little niche of energy we call ourselves. That is not just the body we walk around in, it is the heart, the soul, the mind, the emotions, the thoughts, the actions that make us into who we are. We label things, body parts internal and external, and we give ourselves names. We identify ourselves with our names, but this is just the surface.

Getting to know myself, deep down, at the core of my being is an interesting challenge. Why? Because no one but me can see me at that level. I alone know who I am beneath the surface. Past the name, past the outside actions no one but me knows me.

I know who I am at this moment. But who I am, who you are is in a constant state of flux. The very core of our beings does not change, yet we are always changing because life is not static. This is probably why I can get ahold of myself for a while…but then manage to slip again.

What do I want? There are several things I want, and I know what they are. Part of the problem is that I am either too specific about what I want, or not specific enough. I either have sort of a vague idea of what I want the thing to be, or I have a far-too-detailed and involved knowledge of what I want.

I am constantly finding myself focusing on the how. How is this going to happen? How can I possibly get from point ‘a’ to point ‘b’? How will that work? How does the machine operate? When it comes to manifesting your life, working out the how just causes you to go nowhere. Why? Because the workings of the Universe are mysterious and complex.

There is no fairy godmother granting wishes. The Universe may contain a lot of vacuum, but it doesn’t just bring things out of nothing, per se. You have to have thought, followed up with intent, then emotional energy and intentional actions. But a detailed, step-by-step guide is not a part of that, because it shows a lack of faith and trust and belief.

Blind faith is just that – blind. You cannot go through life praying away things or praying for things and hoping through blind faith you will create something amazing. You have to put energy into it, and you have to act on intent. This is where people who do not know what they want sometimes err the most. They don’t know what they want, so they instead focus on what they don’t want. Because thought, intent, emotion and action manifest reality, guess what you wind up creating?

Knowing what you do not want is as important as knowing what you DO want. The key is to know it, and release it. Focusing on what you don’t want will bring it about.

This is one of my biggest issues with my own path. Faced with something I don’t want, I sometimes find it hard NOT to focus on it. I know I need to put my intention, my attention elsewhere. Knowing and acting, however, sometimes miss one another.

I know who I am. I know what I want. I need to apply the techniques I know to release my fears, and I need to hold my head up and be certain that I have chosen paths to walk that are the right ones for me.

Do you know who you are and what you want?

 

This is the one-hundred ninety fifth entry in my series. These weekly posts are specifically about walking along the path of life, and my personal desire to make a difference in this world along the way. Feel free to re-blog and share.  Thank you for joining me.

The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available in print and for your Kindle.

Positivity: Endless Possibilities

The possibilities are endless.

This phrase gets used and abused, but that does not make it any less true.

Despite all the messages to the contrary, we live in an abundant universe. That means that the information we are often presented with of lack and limitation are incorrect. There are endless possibilities.

What this translates to for everyone is that we can create all the good things we want. Yes, there are going to be bad days and yes bad things that are utterly out of our control will happen. Yet we still have unlimited options for what we want to create with our lives.

It does more often than not take a conscious effort to see the world for possibility. Look at how inundated with negative messages we are. We see war, hatred, greed, corruption, extremism and never-ending messages of fear plastered all over the media. Hard not to focus on these and see a world of lack and scarcity and impossibility.

Yet there are alternatives. We have more direct control over how we feel and how our own personal lives will be than we allow ourselves to experience. We can look at the world not as a scary place full of fearful nightmares, but instead as a place where the possibilities are endless, where we can make and change and remake our lives, a world full of possibility where we can manifest our exciting dreams and learn and grow and change as we would desire.

It is unfortunate that finding positivity seems to take more effort than finding negativity. I think this is largely because in the world of 24 hour news and instant communications negativity just manages to get spread more quickly. But because possibilities are in fact endless, we can change that. We can counter the messages of despair with hope, of hate with love, of war with peace, of exclusion with inclusion, of intolerance with tolerance, of division with unification; we can respond to the negativity not with more negativity but with positivity, negative messages with positive messages.

I know it is very hard to turn it all off, and I know that it is important to be informed. However, allowing the negative messages to soak in and the hopelessness to overwhelm is something you can choose to stay away from. We live in a world of endless possibilities, and because this is true we can choose instead to find hope and positivity and spread that. We can share things that make us happy when things that are not are tossed at us.

Anything is possible. We just need to remember that the next time we think there is no hope and no possibility.

Finding positivity is not hard, it just requires action. Knowing that there are endless possibilities, we can find hope and joy and happiness even when we are inundated with negativity. When we choose to see life for its endless possibilities, we can choose to be hopeful, seek out the possible, find and create better lives for ourselves. As such we empower ourselves. When we feel empowered, we often spread that feeling to others around us, and as such can build more positive feelings. We can use the positive feelings this generates to dissolve negative feelings. When we take away negative feelings, we open up space to let in positive feelings, and that is something we can be grateful for. Gratitude leads to happiness. Happiness is the ultimate positive attitude. Positive attitude begets positive energy, and that is always a good thing.

 

This is the eighty-sixth entry of my Positivity series.  It is my hope these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone.  Feel free to share, re-blog and spread the positivity.

The Wrong Side of History

Dear haters, bigots, misogynists, and homophobes,

Congratulations – you are on the wrong side of history.

I am sorry to tell you that your hatred will not change public policy. Blacks, women, homosexuals, Hispanics, Hindis, Muslims, transgendered, fat and thin people and everyone else all will win equality, because that is what is right.

There is no “gay agenda”, except maybe they want to be treated like everyone else. There is no Muslim world take-over conspiracy, the vast majority of Muslims think about their religious beliefs the same as everyone else. Women should be paid the same as men for the same jobs. Transgendered people have the right to use whatever bathroom they choose. Black, Hispanic and Indian people are not trying to push out white people.

There IS a war on women and their rights to choose how to treat their own bodies. There ARE religious extremists out there who want their intolerant ways applied to all – and not just Muslims, there are plenty of Christian and even Jewish extremists out there. There ARE haters who fear change and dislike seeing women and homosexuals and anyone who is not white and male in positions of power or as major characters in books, TV, movies and other media. There are nut jobs running for office who deny science and logic and reason in favor of extremism and their own power.

I cannot speak for everyone who feels as I do, but let me just tell you this: We are all one. Stop hating, stop being afraid of change because change is going to happen, you are simply in the way. Let go of your hatred, because it is irrational and useless. You aren’t going to keep the “status quo” because it’s not. Everyone deserves equality, everyone has a right to live the life they would choose, and intolerance and hatred won’t stand.

Those of us who feel this way need to speak up. Stop letting the haters spread their hate unanswered. Spread inclusion instead of exclusion, unity instead of division, peace instead of war, love instead of hate, education instead of blind faith, logic instead of extremism. Stop letting the fear mongers win supporters – Let’s work on spreading truth over irrationality.

Maybe I am espousing a hippy-crunchy love-over-hate message, but I see nothing wrong with that. The world needs less fear and hate and more rationality and love. I’m doing my part – what else can we do to change the world for the better?

Pathwalking 194

How do your beliefs effect the paths you are walking?

Short answer – considerably. Long answer – what do you believe?

First and foremost, this has NOTHING to do with religious, faith or spiritual beliefs. This is all about the specific beliefs we hold when it comes to ourselves, our lives, and our understanding of how the Universe works.

What we believe is often tied into what we think we do and don’t know, and how we are feeling. Unfortunately, we often do not take a close look at our core beliefs, and as such we may not fully know what exactly they are.

Getting straight to the point, what this means is that we may hold beliefs that are contrary to what we are working to achieve, and may in fact be counter to what we need to walk the paths we might choose.

Let me be more specific about what I mean here. The beliefs I am talking about are personal. This isn’t I believe in god or I believe the world is round. This is I believe I am capable or I believe I cannot do this or I am fat or I am thin or I have abundance or I am lacking.

What we believe is often deeply buried in our subconscious. Because of this, we experience a disconnect that can present an obstacle along our given paths. We are striving for one thing, yet because deep down we do not believe we can have that thing we have placed a barrier in our way.

Let me use a personal example. I want to get into better shape, lose some weight. Now to do that, I need to watch my diet, I need to get more exercise, I need to be aware of my sugar and caloric intake and all kinds of other matters along that line.

However, taking that into consideration, I also need to know what I believe. Do I think I am fat? Do I think I am capable of getting into better shape? Do I think I am able? Do I think I am getting older and more damaged or staying young and improving?

What I believe is as important as what I do. As I often point out, manifestation comes from thought, emotion and inspired action. Sure, I can pay close attention to my diet and exercise, I can make a conscious effort to be more aware of and attentive to them. But if I am holding onto the belief that I am fat and I cannot get into shape and I am going to have to struggle…it should come as no surprise that I am not getting the results I want.

This is new-age hippy-crunchy mumbo jumbo. No, the problem is that it’s really not. If consciousness creates reality, then what I believe is going to have a pretty big impact on the reality I am creating.

What is belief? Belief is deeper than thought, because it is a subconscious understanding of the universe. This is the core of how I think the world works. Some of what I believe, for example. I believe that consciousness creates reality, and I believe that I can manifest the life I would choose to have. I believe that Pathwalking allows me to control my destiny, and to choose for myself what I want my life to be.

But these beliefs are surface beliefs. These are the things I am putting conscious work into. What lies beneath? What beliefs are at my core? This can be a scary question, because this often digs into places I long ago abandoned. I am working on changing what I believe on the surface…but what do I believe to my core?

This is a question that, like How am I feeling? goes unasked. I have built my beliefs over my lifetime, and while there are always new beliefs that get learned, the old beliefs long created and ignored are still there, sometimes contrary to the new.

What can you do about that? I am working on this now. The device I am employing is to really consider what I believe, and to give it voice. This is surprisingly simple. Working with this today, two beliefs very contradictory to my current actions surfaced for me – I am fat. I never have enough money.

I used meditation to really dive into the depths of my soul, and used a method learned from Boni Lonnsburry’s The Map: To Our Responsive Universe, Where Dreams Really Do Come True. Without giving away her work, to summarize: I visualized written papers with these beliefs, saw them being destroyed and replaced with new papers containing positive new beliefs. I am thin. I always have more than enough money.

Once again I have to stress that thinking things like this are insufficient for conscious reality creation. But thoughts are a big step in the process, and beliefs are deeply rooted thoughts. If we believe contradictions to what we want to create, we make creation far more difficult than it should be.

When we identify the deep, often ignored beliefs we have established, they can come back to haunt us when we are working on new beliefs that are contrary to them. Thus we need to take the time to learn what, deep down, we believe, so that if it is against what we are trying to make manifest we can do something with and about it.

I have been amazed by what I have found as I look into my own beliefs. As much as I have been working on Pathwalking and getting control over my destiny, I am intrigued by how many deep beliefs I possess that are standing against how I want my life to be. This is why being awake and aware and in the moment is so important. You miss quite a lot when you let things just happen, and you forget where you put what you believe. It is almost akin to losing your keys in your own house and forgetting where they are.

How do you think your core beliefs effect the paths you are walking?

 

This is the one-hundred ninety fourth entry in my series. These weekly posts are specifically about walking along the path of life, and my personal desire to make a difference in this world along the way. Feel free to re-blog and share.  Thank you for joining me.

The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available in print and for your Kindle.