Josh Langley's Blog, page 14
April 21, 2017
What fears are holding you back?
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Yeah we all have fears, and we hang them around our neck like we’re some gangster rapper. For me, I’ve got a fear of stepping on crustaceans and half empty swimming pools which I used tell anyone who would listen. However now I’ve come to realise I don’t need to keep brandishing those fears (and all the other ones which are much more subtle) around like a dodgy protest sign at anti Trump rally.
Fear of not being liked.
Fear of upsetting someone.
Fear of getting into trouble for doing something.
Fear of money.
Etc.
In the cold light of day, fears are just thoughts that we keep repeating to ourselves. And we believe the thoughts. However we have the choice to see the thoughts for exactly what they are, just thoughts that are transient and don’t serve any purpose whatsoever.
How is a fear / thought of stepping on a crab going to help me in my writing career? It’s just pointless. Move on. Anyone can blatantly see how being a people pleaser (fear of not being liked) is going to stop you from speaking your honest truth, which has a massive knock on effect in how you deal with people, strive to achieve your dreams and goals and view life in general.
Our past is only a thought. It’s a mental activity of the mind. Question your thoughts of the past and the origin of your fears. You can then choose to keep blindly repeating them and staying at the same level of consciousness or you can decide to put down the placards and badly written protest signs and walk away. You don’t have to own them anymore. They don’t have to be your identity.
They are not your story. You can write a new one.
Til next time.
Hugs
April 19, 2017
A way to live
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Speak kindly and with compassion.
Speak less.
Be less busy.
Include more stillness and activities that fill your heart with joy.
Make and create art/beautiful things that help people feel connected to beauty. For beauty is deep in the soul. Beauty of nature, beauty of a story, beauty of art…
Write to connect, to express and free yourself.
Uplift and inspire people.
Fill people’s hearts with joy and hope.
Be less busy. Love.
Free yourself, unwind…
February 20, 2017
4 Reasons Why It’s Good to Do Nothing
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We spend so much time running around trying to look busy for other people and then when we finish doing that, we still have to look busy for ourselves otherwise we might be considered lazy. It’s all a load of hogwash we need to stop, slow down and really do nothing to get back in touch with our true selves.
Doing nothing doesn’t mean sitting on the couch mindlessly watching day time TV. It means doing something that makes you feel relaxed, gives you mental space and slows down your heart rate. Like, gardening, watching the ocean, watching a movie, lying on the grass or getting a well-deserved massage. You could also include taking time to cook a meal from scratch, walking in nature or setting a side time for mediation are other ways of doing ‘nothing’.
By being too busy, we miss the quiet of moments of inspiration that the universe is trying to send us. For example, lying under a tree is a great way to get inspiration for an idea. (and the tree appreciates it too)
There’s actually nothing wrong with doing nothing. Being busy is a belief cast upon us by society, so you can just choose to ignore it if you want. While everyone else is following the herd and ‘looking busy’, you can blaze your trail of implementing moments of relaxed nothingness and feel all the better for it.
It’s good for your health to slow down, both physically and mentally. A calm mind, leads to a calm body.
Don’t feel guilty for doing nothing. You have to be strong in the face of social conditioning and stare down the people who look disapprovingly at you while you watch the flowers or wander aimlessly down a country lane but it’s well worth it.
February 3, 2017
You don’t need to go to church to be spiritual, I found it in shopping centre.
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You don’t need to go a church, temple, prayer hall, gompa, or synagogue to find spirituality. It’s all around us, in the trees, the animals, the faces of people and as I found out…. a shopping centre. As an icon of western capitalist consumerism the shopping centre is always seen as one of the least of spiritual places, along with freeways and lawyers offices.
However when you think that spirituality is about opening your heart, then you can take spirituality with you everywhere and learn to see the world through the lens of your heart. On this particular day, I noticed that there were a lot of people with disabilities, the elderly, the frail, people with mental illness, people down and out and everybody else just looked hurried and stressed out. Immediately I started judging them with a whole myriad of thoughts running through my head and then I just stopped as a light bulb went on. If growing spiritually is about learning to love people you find hard to love, then it’s the judgements I’m making that are preventing that.It was just a judgement.
All I needed to do was stop the judging, stop the internal commentary on what I think, and just open my heart. My judgements were a barrier to love and suddenly that particular shopping centre was the most spiritual place on earth and everybody inside was my teacher. Simultaneously love and gratitude rose up, washing through my body and soul leaving me in awe of how magical the universe is.
Of course the feeling didn’t last as long as I’d like, but it was a moment that I could reflect on afterwards. And when I have more and more of these moments, they’ll become one big long moment of love where I love me and everybody else without any fear.
January 31, 2017
The night before they go back to school
How do you prepare for ‘back to school’?
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Young Emma has been reading Being You is Enough, especially her favourite page as a way of getting into the zone for the new school year! Pic courtesy of her mum, Shelley.
January 25, 2017
Looking and Finding
Such beautiful simple wisdom.
Look for a sunset
And you will find hope
Look at a flower
And you will find god
Look for your heart
And you will find love
Look for your stillness
And you will find now
Look deep inside
And you will find yourself
Look for silence
And you will find peace
Look for the spaces in between
And you will find the universe
Look for your wings
And you will fly
(Copyright Andy Macleod 2015)
January 24, 2017
A boiling desire to create.
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I’ve noticed of late I can’t slow down.
There’s a tremendous sense of urgency to get things done.
I can feel it, a simmering, no, a boiling desire to create and get something out there.
I know there should be down time between projects.
A time of rest and recuperation.
A time to allow the universe to weave its magic.
But fuck me, I can’t seem to stop!
I can’t even sit and watch cat videos on Facebook!
So I’m going to make peace with myself and finish the projects that I’m currently working on and then…..
I’m going to sit under a tree.
So instead of clawing for things to do between running my regular business of copywriting, I’m going to sit under a tree.
But first the projects need to be released.
Then the tree.
I’m going to take my own advice.
The tree awaits.
January 18, 2017
Interview with Just Write for Kids
Just before Christmas I was lucky enough to be interviewed for the great Children’s Book Blog, Just Write for Kids Australia.
JANUARY 19, 2017 BY JUST WRITE FOR KIDS
#InterviewByBook with Josh Langley
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Title: Being You is Enough and other important stuff
Author: Josh Langley
Illustrator: Josh Langley
Publisher: Big Sky Publishing
Genre: Illustrated Kids Book
Age Group: 6 to 11
Please tell us a bit of what your book is about.
It’s a very different kid’s book, taking the groundbreaking form of a positive affirmation book filled with messages about life we all want our kids to grow up with. There are plenty of amazing picture / story books for kids, but to have one with simple positive statements coupled with quirky illustrations is something very different and that’s what makes the book stand out. The kids love my childlike illustrations!
What kinds of themes / issues are raised in this story?
Where do I start? Self esteem, resilience and helping kids feel comfortable in their own skin. Being You is Enough tackles concepts such as ‘it’s Ok to be different’, No one is perfect, We all make mistakes, the power of daydreaming, resilience and understanding that we’re in charge of our emotions.
How are these important to you in raising awareness to your readers?
With society as crazy as it is these days and parents flat out just trying to earn a living, bring up a family and try and stay sane, some of the core messages about life often get forgotten and lost in the tangled world of social media, peer pressure, societal expectation and the race to ‘be the best’. I wanted to help parents by creating a book that they could share with their kids about what really is important about life. It’s not about iPads, stressful cooking shows and winning awards it’s about understanding who you are on the inside, that we’re perfect just the way we are and that we are all loved.
Who or what inspired you to write this story?
I’ve been writing about happiness and the meaning of life for a while now, but mainly for adults and I wanted to share some of my insights with kids so they can maybe grow up a little bit more well adjusted than some of us adults! I would have loved to have given the book to my 7 year old self to let him know that he was just fine the way he was.
What is your favourite part of the book?
I would have to say the ‘even cool kids have to poo’ page because it was based on something I heard German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, say once. “Do not be intimidated by anyone, even Kings and Queens have to defecate”. I may have seriously misquoted him, but it was the idea that interested me. I now use it to help kids understand that we are all really the same, even the so called bullies. It’s not often you get to sneak in philosophy into a kids book and low and behold it everyone’s favourite page! There’s also a secret recipe for Tortellini with Lemon and Parsley sauce!
Continue Reading.. Click to read full interview
The Bull Ring
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As you step into the bull ring, the crowd roars.
It’s deafening.
The bull, already snorting and thumping the ground, is calling you to arms.
Are you ready to fight?
However, you’re not the brave matador you expect to be, you aren’t dressed
ready for ceremonial battle in the Traje De Luces, you’re still wearing a
dressing gown. You’re not even a fighter.
You are anything but. Still bleary-eyed and shaking off the last remnants
of sleep, you’ve walked straight into the bull ring instead of the bathroom.
The bull lurches forward and steams straight at you.
The crowd cheers.
You don’t dodge to avoid his sharp horns; instead you get gouged in the
leg. Bleeding, you wonder what’s going on and then bam! The bull tears
into you again.
The crowd cheers with each mighty blow. But soon they get a sense that
what they’ve come to see isn’t going to eventuate.
You’re lying there pitiful and lame, not even able to crawl away from
the onslaught of attack after attack. The bull now picks you up with one
of its great horns and tosses you across the ring. You land like a ragdoll,
crumpled in the dirt.
The crowd, no longer anticipating a brave comeback, goes quiet and
then starts to hurl abuse and accusations of being weak and pathetic.
You’re an embarrassment.
Lying there in the dirt and blood, you start to believe them. You close
your eyes and die.
The next morning, you wake up and enter the ring once more.
And before you, the bull stands ready.
Every morning we step into the bull ring of our mind. We are the bull,
the crowd and the little fighter all rolled into one. We attack ourselves
with negative self destructive thoughts and we have no skills to fight
them off, we’re not trained to. We are the crowd that criticises and
judges ourselves because that’s what is expected and happens naturally.
It just happens. But is it good for us?
And then there is little us, blindly wandering in and allowing it all
to happen because we’re conditioned to it. It’s the way it is. This is life.
But what would happen if you turned and walked out of the bull
ring? Does your mind have to be a battle ground? Who are you doing
battle with?
Turn around and walk out of the ring, through the gates into the
grassy fields where the bright sunshine radiates all around you. The
flowers burst with joy and the grass is soft under your tired feet.
And the ground is always there to support you. You can never fall
any further.
You let go of everything, surrender to the beauty of the moment.
What peace!
As you let go and lie naked to the world, something starts to happen.
Your vision changes, you don’t just see with your eyes, you can see with
all your senses and everything become alive. Radiant.
Without the mental anguish, you’re seeing through your heart, the
openness, the bigness, the wowness of everything is raining down on
you. And you don’t miss the old battle scared you for one moment.
You quickly think back to the bullring and you can’t believe that was
your life before. How crazy we are.
This feels real. More real than real could ever be. It feels right. It feels
like home. You’ve come home.
Welcome, you’ve been away for quite some time.
It’s good to be back.
(I note that back in September I had a dream and in my dream
journal I wrote: Don Quixote refuses to engage the bull and rides out of the
Arena and away.)
Extract from Turning Inside Out: What If Everything we’ve been taught about life is wrong.
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