Clarity

Sometimes in life all we're really looking for is a little clarity. Clarity can be a difficult thing to find especially with the fast paced life that most of us lead. For me, Clarity only comes with deep reflection. What I mean by this is taking time to slow down & get in touch with your deepest self, your soul or the person you are truly meant to be. The challenge with clarity is removing the EGO from the equation. Since most of us want the "quick" answer to everything that comes into our life. Our first reaction, in most cases is to react from a place of the EGO. I wrote a great blog on the EGO 4 or 5 months ago, you should check it out if you haven't.

The EGO always wants the quickest & easiest answer it can get. It looks for the path of least resistance & the most EGO satisfying thing it can find. The problem with acting from the EGO is that it can never be satisfied. It always wants more, almost as soon as it gets the last thing...."Wow, that was great but now if I have "xyz" for sure I feel better".

So for true clarity we need to try and get past the EGO. We need to get in touch with who we truly are & what our true life's purpose is. This isn't easy to do, I still struggle with understanding how what I feel my life's purpose is fits into my everyday life. It's ok to struggle with this, but to move past the struggle is to bring some peace to your mind. Try & quiet your thoughts & just feel, feel from deep down inside. For me when I do this an answer will suddenly appear in my head. Most of the times it's not something you thought of before (I do this exercise most days to come up with a topic for the blog). If this answer doesn't bring you true clarity to the situation, what I do is set an intention for clarity.

Through the setting of this intention I open myself up for help from God/universe. How does this help come? There's no standard way, for me it's about paying attention to the things that appear in my life. The more attention you can give to the small things in your life the easier it is to pickup on the help that God/universe sends.

What do I mean by this? When I pay attention to the small things in my life I tend to see a certain pattern that suddenly emerges in everything. Many times for me it's several people from different parts of life saying the same thing or it's the same words or messages over the radio or on signs that become more clear. Through this attention to the detail of small things we can often find the clarity we are looking for.

Take time when you need clarity. Slow down & reflect. Set your intention for clarity & observe what comes into your life. Through these practices you will find the clarity you are looking for & lead a more joyful life!

I hope you all have a great weekend. Remember I love to hear from you & if you have topics you'd like for me to write about leave them in the comments below.

Thanks for following me, till Monday,

Bill

Quote of the day:"Slow down & reflect when you need more clarity in your life. By taking time reflect to reflect clarity will come."



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Karma

Do you believe in Karma? Do you even know what Karma is? According to Dictionary.com the definition to Karma is: "action, seen as bringing upon oneself inevitable results, good or bad, either in this life or in a reincarnation: in Hinduism one of the means of reaching Brahman." The true principle of Karma is that you get back what you give out. In the Hindu or Buddhist religion this Karmic payback may come in a different lifetime. Whether you want to believe in reincarnation or not I believe the principle of Karma is sound & actually noted in several other religions without giving it the name of Karma.

Yesterday we talked a lot about Generosity & I explained that whatever we give will come back to us at least ten fold. There's actually some passages in the bible that say what we give out will come back 30,60 or 100 fold. The idea is the same; what give out, whether it's money, love or a helping hand will always come back to us greater then we give out.

The downside of this is that if we give out "bad" things they will come back magnified as well. In the law of Karma if you do something bad to other people you have a Karmic debt to repay. Sometimes this debt alone will stop you from truly reaching your life's purpose because no matter what intentions you're sending out now, until you repay this Karmic debt you can't reap the rewards.

Everybody has things they've done in their life that they are not happy about (or at least most people). Forgive yourself for the your past mistakes. Give back to others in some way to make amends for them. Give with true love & humility. Through this openness & willingness to give back you will truly find the joy we are all meant to have.

The idea of Karma is an amazing principle trust in the fact that it's how God/universe works. Open your heart and give out what you want to receive back. Live your life in service to others & you'll find a greater joy then you can imagine.

Till tomorrow,

Bill

Quote of the day: "An understanding of the law of Karma is the way to live your life. What we give out we will get back."

My latest video blog is now on this blog (under December 10th) the name of this video is "Journey to Joy: Love - let go of excuses." Take 2 minutes & check it out.


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Generosity

Are you Generous? Do you give money or time? Do you try to make a difference? I think at this special time of the year we should all examine what we do to make a difference in the world. There are so many ways to help others and as I've written before the way to a more joyful life is by committing yourself to giving to others.

The simple act of giving opens yourself up to receiving back all you've given & more. I know we're living in a difficult time & not everyone has the money to give. If this is the case for you, don't get discouraged. There are plenty of ways to give to others. If you don't have the money think about donating your time. If you don't have the time think about donating things you have around the house or food depending on your Charity of your choice.

There are a lot of great charities to give to. I don't think people even realize how easy it is to find a charity that fits right into your life. If you're worried about children or education you can find a charity. If you're worried about the homeless there's a charity. If you're concerned about animals or the arts there are plenty of places to give to.

We all get caught up in this season & we're worried about getting all our shopping done or getting all of our cards out but we all need to take a moment to realize the need around us. In this time especially the need is greater then ever. Many charities are overwhelmed with the need & they need us all to step up to help out.

There is no greater joy then that of giving. Open your heart & give as deeply as you can. You will have a better life because of it as long as it's truly from your heart. If you give looking for something in return the benefits may not be as great. As with everything we've discussed here, if we act looking for something it's usually EGO based. The way to a more joyful life is to feel the compassion & want to make a difference. Acting from your heart will always bring you great benefits. Find a cause & give from your heart, you'll find more joy then you can imagine.

Till tomorrow,

Bill

Quote of the day: "Through giving with an open heart you will discover more joy then you can imagine in your life."



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It's always darkest....

It's always darkest before the dawn. Sometimes in life it's very difficult to believe that. We've all been through trials in our life & I'm sure there have been times for each of you when you felt that the darkness in your life was so dark that you'd never see the sun again. I've experienced this darkness before in my life & to me it always feels like being held under the water & needing to breathe. You feel like you'll never get that breath no matter how hard you try. But the God/universe will always help you even when it feels like they won't.

The truth is no matter how much you follow the exercises I've outlined before in this blog, there are times for all of us when we feel overwhelmed. For me I've learned that there can be great growth in these times of darkness & the most important thing is to trust in yourself & in the practices you've set-up. I know it's difficult to continue believing that "this to shall pass" but as with any storm in nature the darkness can't last forever.

So how do we make it through these times. As I mentioned above, you must continue to trust in yourself. This belief should be tempered with some self reflection. We need to take time when things are darkest to make sure we are acting from our soul & not our EGO. This self reflection should codify that we are on the correct path. That this vision for our life is what we truly want & it is in balance with the universe & our soul purpose.

The dark times will pass just as the sun rises each day. Try to remember the good times even when things are the darkest & remember to learn everything you can from the darkness. The knowledge you learn at these darkest times will help you grow & make it possible to avoid the darkness in the future.

Remember to always stay open & come from a place of love especially when things look their darkest. Through your commitment to loving others even when you need love the most you will find the sun again.

Until tomorrow,

Bill

Quote of the day: "Even when life seems to be it's darkest, love will help you find the way to the light."

My latest video blog is now posted here, take a look at it & let me know your thoughts.


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The 4 letter word....

I've written a lot over the past 6 months about love. I truly believe that love will change the world & that each of us can find more love in our life by first loving ourselves. The word I haven't brought up before, mostly because it's the worst 4 letter word I know is: hate!

So often we discuss the power of our thoughts. These thoughts can manifest anything that we truly set them onto. But, we forget in our daily life that a byproduct of thought is words and I believe words are also very powerful. To many of us use the word hate for so many things in our life. I hate that TV commercial, I hate the cold weather, etc., etc.

The word hate & the meaning of hate is spewed out all over TV. We should hate this person for doing "that". We should hate that group because they are radicals. All of this hate adds up to less love in our lives. I rarely use the word at all. As I described above I think it's the worst 4 letter word I know because it's the opposite of everything I believe. For most of us though we use it as a throw away. It's one of the first words out of our mouths. We hold the word love back because we're afraid of being hurt by letting someone know that we love them but we use the word hate all the time.

Love is the answer to everything in our life. This doesn't mean that there won't be times that you're hurt because of love. But the amount of love you'll receive in your life by opening up and loving more, far out weighs any hurt you'll discover on the path to more love.

Let's agree today to stop using the word hate. Leave that word for the worst in people; use it only when it's absolutely necessary. By taking this small step you will reduce the hate in the world & through this vacuum, you will increase the amount of love in the world.

Till Monday, have a great weekend.

Bill

Quote of the day: "Let go of the casual use of the word hate and by doing this we can increase the love in the world."

PS Several people have asked about the photo under the title of this blog "Journey to Joy". It is a picture I took in the Smokey Mountains this past spring. If you want a copy of it let me know.

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Who Am I?

One of the most difficult questions any of us have to answer is; "Who am I?" that question is usually followed up with "Why am I here?". Many of us spend a lifetime trying to figure out the answers to these questions and some other's of us avoid these questions at all costs. Where do you fall in this spectrum?

For me the journey to get to know myself was a very difficult one. As I mentioned earlier in this blog I didn't like myself to much when I was younger. This was mostly because my Dad made me feel like nothing I could do was good enough. I wrote a wonderful blog about "not feeling good enough". I would recommend you give it a read if you are having this issue (I've moved all my old blogs over here). Once I got past the this feeling of not being good enough, I started to explore who I really was & what was important to me.

This process took me many years & a lot of thought & reflection. The truth is that although I've been writing this blog for almost 6 months now giving you tips to improve your life and all of these tips are things that I've used or had to work my way through in my life. The only way you can truly change your life is to take the time to get to know yourself. There may be things you discover that you don't like about yourself, that's ok. You need to discover these things to move past them. Forgive yourself for the mistakes you've made in your life. Remember the past is the past & you can't change any of it. So, forgive yourself & move beyond the things that you don't like about yourself. By moving past these issues you can begin to discover who you truly are.

In the world today we are always looking for the quick fix. We want the easy way out of everything. Discovering who are isn't something to shortcut. You need to take whatever time it takes to love yourself. Without having the ability to love yourself you can never fully love someone else. We need to have love to give love.

Once you truly know who you are & love yourself even with all your blemishes. You can begin to explore the question of "Why am I here?". This again can be a life long quest & the true answer may never be revealed to you but by taking time to explore this question, you are already on the correct path.

I personally struggle with this question. I know what I feel in my heart but whether I can actually make a living doing it is another large question. Sometimes we have to fill our souls with our true purpose without it being our job. That's ok as long as you find your fulfillment somewhere. For me currently this blog has been a great fulfillment for my soul.

Don't get discouraged, remember that the time you take on yourself is always the most important time you can spend.

Till tomorrow,

Bill

Quote of the day: "Do you know who you are? Take the time to discover yourself & you will lead a more joyful life."

PS I've posted my latest video blog here. I hope you like it.



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Journey to Joy: Love - Let go of excuses