Expectations

Do you have expectations?  Do you set expectations in everything you do?  It's very easy in life to expect a certain outcome and we all tend to do it in almost everything we do.  Expectations on their own are not necessarily bad, but in the universal sense they set up disappointment and by setting an outcome the universe works towards that expectation.

So, how do you feel when you've set an expectation, and you have the outcome you expected?  For most of us it's nice but not truly joyful because we already decided what we will get out of a situation. For example, if you plan a vacation to place you've never gone to before and set your expectation that you'll have a good time, even if you have a good time is it truly as good as if you'd let go of the expectation and just enjoyed the trip?

My feeling is that expectations only lessen the joy you can feel and if you don't reach the expectation you've set you're truly disappointed.  So, why set them?  Why not instead just enjoy every moment and fully enjoy every experience that you have.  To me expectations are like are like a grade in school if expect an "A" and get a "B" you're disappointed and if you expect an "A" and get an "A" you're not really happy because you've reach what you already expected.

Take time to examine what you expect in your life from all situations you deal with and especially think about what you expect from the people in your life.  Live life in the now and enjoy every moment, celebrate the joy of discovery and let go of expectations.

Till tomorrow,

Bill

Quote of the day "Let go of expectations and live life in the moment!"

Compassion

The greatest love we can have for another is true Compassion.  In today's busy world we are desensitized by other people's stories.  There's so much bad news on the TV, Internet, phone and newspapers that we've grown into people that don't feel, period.  We're afraid to feel because we're afraid that once we give ourselves to another or to a situation, we won't be able to manage our own feelings.

Dictionary.com's definition of compassion is as follows: "a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.".  Compassion truly is the opening of your heart to another...putting their needs before yours which is as close to unconditional love that we may be able to reach.

Trust me I know it's hard to open your heart, I've been told all my life that I care to deeply about people and I feel their pain when they go through difficult things in their lives. Have I been hurt by people because of this?  Of course, I have but I've never changed the way that I am.  I love people deeply and I always look for the positive in any person that comes into my life. If I can't find the positive, I try to look at what I need to learn from this person.  I also try and remember that we are all divine beings trying to do our best.  People making mistakes is part of us being human, if we can try and understand where they're coming from, we will grow as a person and the world will be a better place because of our understanding and compassion.

Deepak Chopra wrote this about if compassion is superficial : "When your individual self identifies with the universal self, then it feels compassion for anyone or any living creature. It’s not superficial in the least, because whatever you are feeling compassion for, it is yourself that you are feeling. Nothing could be more personal and direct than your own feelings. And it is profound because it is more than sentimental or emotional involvement, your soul is engaging and recognizing itself in the soul essence of the other. You are seeing yourself and knowing yourself in the life of the being you are feeling that compassion for."

Open your heart to love and compassion, let go of the fear of feeling, instead accept your feelings and grow as a person.

Till tomorrow,

Bill

Quote of the day "Allow compassion to open heart and discover what true love is."

Reflections

 

I've always been a person who believes that God/universe has a sense of humor.  The reason I am bringing this up now is that to me one of the most interesting/funny things that happen in life is the reflection of things you need to learn back at you.  Some people become very annoyed by this process, but I've always tried to find some humor in it because God/universe will continue to bring this lesson up to you until you learn it and move past it.

There several parts to the idea of reflection, I will try and give an example of each one.  The first example, to me, is the people you meet.  Have you ever wondered why a person in the office or neighborhood, or church drives you crazy?  They may have never even done anything to get you upset but there's something about them that you just don't like, and you don't know why.  Most of the time this is because of reflection.  This person exhibits a quality of yourself that you don't like very much or are trying to work on, for example you tend to be a quiet person who wants to be more sociable and the person in the office that annoys you is loud and very sociable.  This isn't an easy lesson and it took me a long time to try and look deeper into why I didn't like a certain person.  But for me, I always try to come from the point of "what can I learn from this relationship" everyone we meet in our life is there for a reason and sometimes it's because of the idea of "reflection".  To learn the things about ourselves that we must forgive, work on or move through.

The second way this works is a little more direct.  You have a problem with anger and you know you do but you can't seem to get it under control.  Well, God/universe will throw situations at you in your life that will cause you to get angry.  This may upset you, understandably, but instead you should be again looking at "what I can learn from this" .  That's why I believe that God/universe has a sense of humor.... not always a good one but all He knows is to help you to be a better person!  If the same type of situation keeps reoccurring in your life look at what you need to learn, change or grow through to lead a more joyful/positive life.

Finally, although this isn't truly "reflection" it's worthy of mentioning here.  God/universe doesn't understand "no" all the universe knows is to provide what we need.  So, if you keep repeating that I "don't have enough money" God/universe will give you more of not having enough money because that's what you asked for.  This is a very complex final point, and it takes a while to wrap your head around it but to use the example above you should say "I have all the money I need" and God/universe will continue to provide you "all the money you need".  This is especially true with your gratefuls and visions board. Don’t think about lack, think instead about having everything you need.

Thoughts can change the world, watch what you think and try and learn from everyone that comes into your life, especially if it's someone that annoys you.  Look deep inside & see what's being reflected back.

Till tomorrow,

Bill

Quote of the day "Love the person you see in the mirror and learn from every person that enters your life. Love to life and love yourself"

Emotional Attachment

Yesterday we delved into one of the biggest obstacles I've had to overcome in my life, my father.  What I learned from the experience and the process that I went through to remove this baggage from my life is called "emotional attachment".

What is emotional attachment, for me, the easiest way to explain it is this; have you ever wondered why a song brings certain feelings to you or a movie or a picture.  The reason we instantly fall into an emotional state when we hear a song or see a movie or picture is because we attached an emotion to them the 1st time, we experienced the song, movie or photo.  This emotion can be good or bad, but we save it in our memory, and we always go back to it, that's the way the mind works.

So, if we expand this idea to events in our life it's easy to see how we can fall into old patterns quickly.  The proof of this to me, coming from a big family, is that each of my sisters can recite a event that happened when we were young but because it wasn't an important event for all of us, some of us don't remember anything about it.  Yet the one reciting the story can give you every detail still like they were living through it again right now. 

The problem with this is that if we've had difficult things happen to us in our lives, like my dad saying, "You could have done better".  We attach emotions to anything similar that reminds us of those words and instantly you can be pulled down to a very bad place.  It works kind of like this for me; 20 years ago I was fired from a job, I had no idea it was going to happen in fact I did a lot of good things for this place but in my head rather than thinking about the good I did, I went immediately to "I'm not good enough"....."I can never be good enough".  Thus, what followed was weeks of trying to get out of this depression that was caused by this "old emotion" which really didn't have to do with the job situation.

The way we get past this is to recognize the emotional attachment and choose a different reaction.  This takes work but the rewards are great because just as the mind remembers the original event once we re-attach the event to something different the mind will remember the new feeling.  This change in thought is what will help us get past anything that has happened to us in our past.  If we move our "old" destructive thoughts to "new" positive/joyful thoughts we can truly change our lives.

I hope this helps and I hope you all have a great weekend.

Till Monday,

Bill

Quote of the day "Find an old thought or feeling, change it to a joyful new thought and you'll never fear the past, again."

Love Yourself

The response to yesterday's blog was amazing & several of you commented to me that being quiet is something that's hard for you or something you don't like to do.  Because of that I wanted to talk about the struggles I had with being quiet when I was younger.  To me one of the main reasons people are afraid or don't like to be quiet is because they don't like themselves very much, I know that was true for me.

It's important to understand that to give love you need to have love to give & that truly begins with loving yourself & being comfortable with who you are.  For me it took many years to get there, I grew up in a family of 5, I have 4 sisters & I'm in the middle of them.  A lot of pressure was put on me by my dad because I was the only boy & he wanted me to succeed.  The problem was he wanted it so much that I could never do enough to please him.  I was almost a straight A student, finished in the top 10 in graduating class in HS, was a pretty good athlete, involved in student government, chess team, choir & all the school plays.  But it was never enough for him & therefore I never truly knew who I was or what I really wanted in life.  I stumbled through life until I was in my mid 30's, that’s when my change began.

I was fortunate to meet Heidi who was very supportive of me, changing some of the things I didn't like about myself.  As I mentioned before, the change started for me with reading "The Return of Merlin" by Deepak Chopra.  He is still one of my favorite authors & I own 8-10 of his books.  I've also enjoyed Julie Cameron, James Redfield, Neal Donald Walsch, Gary Zukav & Marianne Williamson to name way too many.... LOL

Anyway, my change took time & I didn't really get past my fear of quiet until my dad’s death & the help from my life coach Susie Wise-Peterson.  What I learned is that you must forgive yourself for the things that have happened in your life.  As I've mentioned before the past is the past & you can't change it no matter how hard you try.  But, if you acknowledge it, forgive yourself or the other person or both & let the pain go you can move past it.  I've discovered that everything in your head, no matter how bad, can be changed by the steps I just outlined.  It's in that change of thought that you can be reborn to a more joyful/positive life.

Once I resolved the issues with my Dad, I actually loved being by myself & I enjoy taking time to be quiet.  I know the only way for me to continue to grow is to love myself so I can share that love with the world.  The change in me was/is dramatic & I know it can happen for you as well. Continue with me on this "Journey to Joy".

Till tomorrow,

Bill

Quote of the Day "Love yourself first, it's the only way to be able to share your love with the world."

Silence

Most of the topics we talked about over the past month have been very active ways of starting the change in your life to a more joyful/positive life.  I've always considered myself a person of action so that's the easiest way for me to start. But there's another very important tool to remember and that is silence!  Just being quiet, clearing your mind & listening to your soul is a great way to center yourself and remove all the noise around you.

I have never been into meditation, I know it works wonders for some people, but I haven't found a practice that works for me.  I instead just be quiet, one of my favorite places to be quiet is in the Smokey's.  Heidi and I try to go down there as often as we can & I love to sit out on a trail or just on the deck where we're staying and just take in the beauty around me.  When I'm not there I envision being there when I take time for my quiet moments, because for me beauty and quiet just fills me up.

The reason why silence is important is because it slows us down and helps us to refocus our energy.  Life is lived in the pauses; it's the pauses that give life more definition.  Like the pauses between notes of music.  Without the pauses all we are action and movement.  Life is made up of opposites without the bad we wouldn't know the good.  I feel this is especially true with silence.

We all live such busy lives and it's hard to take time for yourself but as with morning gratefuls and your vision board please take time to just be silent.  The peace you find in the quiet will lead forward to a more joyful/positive life.

Till tomorrow,

Bill

Quote of the day "Live in the moment because the pauses between breaths are what lead you to your next adventure.  Every moment has meaning."

 

Unlearn

To follow up on yesterday and the idea of looking at the world through a child's eyes.  I wanted to talk a bit about the stuff we are taught as we grow older.  There's a song from the musical "South Pacific" called "You've got to be carefully taught".  Here are the lyrics:

You've got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You've got to be taught
From year to year,
It's got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught!

This song has always rung true to me because as I said yesterday a child looks at the world as a wonder.  Everything about it is joyful, the discovery of new things is awesome.

So the challenge as we get older & as we try to return to that the childlike vision of the world is to "unlearn" all the things we have been taught.  We must work hard to let go of the negative vision we've been told of the world, as most of it isn't true.  We are all connected and if we all try to let go of the lies, we've taught throughout our lives and return to the purity of a child we will be in a better world.

The final part of trying to return to being a child is to find time to play.  Give yourself time as often as you can to rediscover the joy of playing.  Whether it's a sport you like, a game you've always loved or doing something creative, make time to play & you'll fill your soul with joy.  Resist the urge to say you can't make time for play.  Remember small steps create new habits so if you make the time to play, you'll continue to do it. 

Let go of what you've been taught, believe that every moment is joyful.

Till tomorrow,

Bill

Quote of the day "Open your mind and unlearn the lies you've been taught in your life. Find joy in every moment, be a child."

Here's Mandy Patinkin singing "You've got to be carefully taught"Quote of the day "Find the beauty in everything in your life & your life will be more beautiful"