Understanding your dark side

Yes we all have one even if we don’t want to admit it. In fact trying to bury it away is one of the biggest problems we can face. The trick, I’ve found, with the dark side is to acknowledge it & know when it’s needed. Yes, there truly are times that we need to allow ourselves to slip into the dark side.

What do I mean by the dark side? To me it’s the part of myself that's selfish, cranky, rude & sometimes wishes ill will to ours. We all have those moments in our life when we snap at someone or do something truly for our own benefit even if it means hurting someone else. I’m sure if we explored deeper we would find even nastier parts of ourselves & exploring is the key. If we can’t understand ourselves how can we expect anyone else to understand where we’re coming from or what motivates us. It truly is impossible! What often happens next is a feeling of frustration because we feel misunderstood & alone.

In the fast paced world we live in today everybody is looking for the quick fix, the miracle cure & many of us are unwilling to take the time needed to discover who we truly are. A big reason for this is we’re afraid of what we’ll find. So how many skeletons have you buried inside of yourself? How much hurt & pain have you tucked away for fear of experiencing it? We all do it but does that make it right? I think not!!!

There are two things you need to remember when you begin the exploration of yourself:

1) Anything you discover about yourself can be changed. This is a proven fact by many studies throughout the last decade or so. Granted it’s not always easy to change things that you’ve been doing for a longtime but it can be done with work & repetition.

2) Only by dealing with the emotions & feelings that we have deep inside can we move beyond them to a better a life. That fear or pain that you’ve buried will always come back to haunt you at the most inopportune times until you learned to move beyond it..

I’m not going to kid you sometimes it’s a difficult process to really look into yourself. I know for me it’s was very hard process but I discovered so much about myself that it was very worthwhile. I shed many a tear looking at the pain I buried inside & realized the pain that I caused others because of my selfish actions at different times in my life. I am a better person because I understand now that if I get angry or feel hurt or act in a selfish way, where that feeling comes from & how to move beyond that feeling to a better place.

So, the question you’re probably asking yourself is, how? The answer to that is a difficult one. We all process things differently because of the life experiences we have so there’s no set pattern (although you could read books that tell you an easy way). I believe that it all begins with taking time for yourself. Go into a room alone turn everything off & allow your mind to run with whatever it wants to. I always brought a pad a paper in to jot down the thoughts I had & the feelings associated with those thoughts.; Then backtrack through your life till you get to the earliest thing you remember. Throughout this journey pay attention to the feelings that emerge as you recount the events of your life. Give yourself praise for getting through any & all the difficult times you’ve had, for by making it through you proven you can get through anything that life throws your way.

Understand when you acted selfishly or were angry or cruel to someone. Try to think about why you acted that way & if now you could think about a better way to handle the situation. Forgive yourself for the mistakes you made & for the times you didn’t act as your best self would. Understand that the past can’t be changed but that you can be the person you want to be in every situation if you understand why you acted the way you did.

Everything is possible in life & the journey we are on together or separately should always be to act as the best person we can be. We all make mistakes, we are only human but by learning from those mistakes & growing into the person we know we can be, we can change the world one step at a time.

Always remember that no matter how dark the storm becomes nothing lasts forever & you will endure because you have before. Sometimes through the darkest parts of our lives we gain the most knowledge, I wish it wasn’t so but for many of us it is. Relish the dark by discovering the joy even in the worst….it’s always there.

Till next time,

Bill

Quote of the day: “Only by understanding the dark side of ourselves can we become who we truly want to be!”

Love for Life

Yes, it’s a phrase we hear often in life “He/She has a love for life” but what does it really mean & how can each of us discover a true love of live? I’ve debated this thought often in my life because although most of the time I’m a very joyful happy person there are times that I too struggle. In fact when I was younger I struggled much more often then I do now.

The secret of this phrase to me is to enjoy the moment. I know this is another often heard phrase & in today’s busy world it’s actually becoming a little cliché. I never throw things out into the world unless I truly believe them & I honestly know in my heart that they make a difference & that’s the way it is for me with living in the moment.

Many of you know I’ve had a huge transition in the past year. Going from being unemployed for 15 months to working half a country away, from home, on my own to finally being offered a full-time job & moving my family to a new home in a new state. I’m not going to sit here & say that it was always easy, in fact the truth is there were many times that were very difficult but the one thing that kept me going was just living in the moment. I discovered that overall things that we think are so important in our life actually find a way to take care of themselves if we allow them to.

I wrote a blog a while ago on the Prayer of St. Francis, in that blog I described how everything has it’s time & in the journey I’ve taken over the past 8 months I’ve discovered that not only do things have their own time but if we allow them they will find their own time. Now don’t misunderstand this, certainly there are things that we all have to take care of now but we put the “now” tag on many more things then we should. The truth is that most things in life can wait & if we allow the choice or the event to find its own time things will flow much more easily.

You see to me the joy of life is what is in-front of me right now. I discover joy in the littlest things & that joy gives me a true love of life. The love that I have for the world around me comes from the deepest part of me. It’s a quiet place that can always bring me back to a calm feeling even in the biggest storm around me. I believe with every fiber of my being that if we allow it things will work out as they should.

In today’s world that’s a difficult lesson because there’s so much hype to have everything now & to do everything now! Don’t allow yourself to get caught up in this hype. The material world will never bring you the joy you are looking for. It is only through our connection to everything & everyone that we discover the joy around us. We are made of love. Just take a moment & think back to any child you’ve known. Think about the joy & wonderment in their face over the smallest thing….like the flower in the grass or the way the clouds move. Children show us our true self. The self that only knows love & trust & goodness, the part of us that we never loose but sometimes forget about.

Take time to remember wonderment, look at the world anew in each & every moment. Practice this “letting go” until it becomes apart of you again. Through this “change of focus” the smallest things will affect you like never before. Joy is all around us but it’s up to us to discover it. Open your heart, change your focus, discover the wonderment of a child. Laugh that little giggly laugh that only a child knows because there’s so much to enjoy in this world we live in.

No matter how dark the world seems to get, there is always something to find joy in & when we as a connected community of spirits begin to discover that through our thoughts & our thoughts alone we can change the world, amazing things will begin to happen. We are at the doorstep of a new age of man, together we can cross through to a world that knows love first & that understands that we are all one.

Till next time,

Bill

Quote of the day: “A true of love of life begins within each us of. Open your heart & mind & discover the joy in this moment.”

Moving out of your own way

For many of us this title sounds like an easy thing to do. We believe we know where we’re going & just what steps we need to take to get to our ultimate destination but in fact this can be one of the hardest lessons to learn in life or at least it was for me.

I know I haven’t written much lately & I apologize to all of you for that. Life has been very busy settling into a new job & relocating to a new state. I’ve had many thoughts but not the time to write them all down & then yesterday I was reminded that so often we get in our own way of happiness. In fact we set ourselves up for disappointment, how do we do this? For many of us, it’s expecting a result.

I’m not going to tell you that all expectations are bad, but I’ve learned in my life that there really is no place for them. The best result that can happen way we expect a result is that we get what we expected &, for me, that diminishes the result because we only met our expectation. On the other side of the coin if we don’t get what we expected we can be crushed & left wondering why? or what’s next?

So often in life we make up our mind that “this” is what we need to be happy & when we don’t get it we blame God/universe for our sadness because all we needed was “X” & you didn’t give it me.

The truth is we set ourselves up for this disappointment because we think we know what’s best for us. I have found in life that opening your mind to possibilities will allow things to happen in your life that you never thought could or would happen. That’s truly the way we create our future. It’s an ever evolving path that we create cooperatively with God/universe. It is only through this ebb & flow that we can create the life we want to live, for when we get set in our path or in our ways we close off the world of possibilities & stay stuck where we are, which may not be the best place.

How many times in your life have you discovered after the fact that the thing you thought you wanted the most wasn’t really all that great. I can’t answer for you but for me it was often. When I was a young man I made things happen by sheer will. I wouldn’t take no for an answer & I moved through life knowing that I could get the “brass ring” anytime I wanted.

The sad part was I was never truly happy because I thought I knew what I needed to be happy & I believed that I knew what was best for me. I went through my younger years with great highs & sometimes very deep lows because the truth was I had no idea what I wanted & I allowed my EGO to dictate what was best in the moment. The EGO always wants the instant gratification & by following the EGO we can discover tremendous highs. The problem is that the EGO is never truly satisfied it always wants more & when it doesn’t get it, we crash & burn.

I have discovered that by stepping out of my own way that life is on a much more even keel & expectations play a big roll in that. I allow the best outcome to be created, rather then expect the result that I believe is the best.

The bottom is it’s all up to you: Open your mind & allow possibilities or close your mind & expect results. Trust me when I say this choice is life changing.

Until next time,

Bill

Quote of the day: “To expect an outcome only diminishes the result, be surprised, be open to the possibility & watch the world change around you.”