Maybe the fact that we have flaws makes us a perfect human.
This is a beautiful video my cousin sent me. I must credit the creator, Verodigm, from Instagram. Here is the link to the video, and I am pasting the video below:
Category: Life Is Yours
First Section of Spark The Flame. Reminder that this is your Life.
No matter what, know that things can get better.
No matter where you are. Or what is going on. Regardless of the impacts of the past, the future can be very unpredictable.
No matter what we think is going to happen, or how we believe things will turn out, we don’t consciously know it all. We don’t know the details. And so often, wild, crazy things have entered into Life to be a part of reality.
Keep positive. Keep open. And definitely, please, stay real.
Keeping positive doesn’t mean denying the truth of the moment. Positivity that can spark change is about accepting the truth of the moment, being a “Yes” to it, with humility, love, connection, and optimism. Imagine the number of people who have done the worst things, and then turned their lives around. Imagine the many miracles people have experienced with seemingly no rhyme or reason, but which have been saving graces in their lives?
Keep positive my friends. Real to your self, your core, your Soul. And yet, positive. Loving. Accepting. Forgiving. Loving. Loving. Loving.
Blessings to you and yours. And all. One Love.
I have been struggling off and on with feeling meaning. It comes in waves. It’s difficult to define how long this last one was, I think it was on and off for almost a year. It was more on struggle this autumn until a few weeks ago.
I think there were a combination of things that helped alleviate it. My mom helped me paint to a much brighter color in my living room and bedroom. And she shared with me a meditation which put me in a purer state of Presence when listening to it. These things helped a lot.
One of the greatest contributions to my sustaining more meaning in these recent weeks is drastically reducing the noise that my brain listens to. I live by myself, and during my free time I’m normally listening to news, sports content, talks, etc. When I cut out all those things and just sat quiet while eating, while cleaning, while brushing my teeth, etc., I was in effect spending more time with a part of my self.
While I care about what’s happening in the world, possibly the greatest meaning is found within my self. Or at least, it was a huge factor that was not getting any attention to Be, and be Present, and quiet. Quiet so that I can discern and feel the meaning that exists in the fabric of the moment.
I feel a lot better now, having cut out a significant amount of distractions from my free time. I automatically sense more meaning in the moment.
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The Door is Within
The Door is within.
What the heck does that mean?
I feel like, whatever it is I’m looking for, asking for, wanting…, the access is inside.
It’s not like I need to search and find the door, the “thing”, somewhere out there. Maybe something specific, sure it is physically outside of your body. But as if it does not arrive in your path unless you have opened the door inside you. And that door is arrived as a vibration of your mind, your emotion, your being.
Imagine if you vibrate at certain levels, you actually see different things that exist on those levels. In this case, your own vibration is the door you are looking for to bring that which you want to you.
Now whether or not that thing is a good thing, is a different story, and one I might as well get to here : )
I say, shoot for health. Or meaning.
My uncle is about to pass away. He battled many things, one of which is addiction. I love him dearly.
My grandma passed away in late June. She raised me.
There was a challenging, yet beautiful connection between my grandma and my uncle (mom and son). I think they needed each other in some ways.
Love you both. I am glad my heart feels your loss…it will be a way to connect with you.
The best security we have is in who we decide to be, who our relationships are, and our faith in the higher power.
Allowing / Appreciating versus Pulling / Feeding:
If I find myself energetically feeding on someone, whether feeding through their body or some other way, and I tell myself and get myself to stop, I find that it equates to a change from taking to allowing. And inevitably that allowing transforms into or invites my appreciation.
So that got me thinking: if I did more appreciating of how things turn out and allowing instead of pulling, then I’d be more open to how Life wants to turn out, and I think I would be more aligned with the purpose and meaning of Life, which may be to: be surprised and enjoy it.
Right now, looks like I’m going through another identity shift or movement.
Im wondering whether I need to relax on myself, and my standards of discipline, a little, so that more joy enters my life.
I work really hard and diligently. My life is filled with beauty, love, blessings, and grace. Even with all these blessings, I have been missing a more consistent joy that I want. Even acknowledging that I want this joy, and having an idea of how to allow it (by relaxing more on my requirements and discipline), I feel better and more relaxed. Truly, I want to treat myself sweeter.💘💘
How do you appreciate something beyond being grateful? En-joy it. Live it. Liiiiiiiiiiive it.
This is an ancient concept: suffering is pain multiplied by resistance.
What this means is that the more we resist pain, the more suffering we endure.
The belief behind this is that pain in Life is inevitable. But suffering is an option.
Of course you can think of things you do to avoid unnecessary pain. But, what about necessary pain? It is in these times, when pain is necessary, that we need to allow it to work its purpose, or else we experience a suffering that comes from nonacceptance.
Short video from Meg LeFauve, writer/director for Pixar Animation Studios. Here she seamlessly weaves together faith, determination, belief, vulnerability, courage through fear, and other values, talking about her career.
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Belonging vs. Fitting In
“The opposite of belonging, from the research, is ‘fitting in.’ Fitting in is assessing, and acclimating. Here is what I should say, be. Here is what I shouldn’t say, here’s what I should avoid talking about. Here’s what I should dress like, look like. That’s fitting in.
Belonging, is belonging to yourself first. Speaking your truth, telling your story, and never betraying yourself for other people. True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are. It requires you to be who you are. And that’s vulnerable.”
-Brené Brown
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More on Meaning in Life
I love what Emily Esfahani Smith says. She is someone I can always count on, much like Brené Brown, to speak very authentically, with a powerful, conscious heart. Emily Esfahani Smith is a researcher and author. The findings that she speaks about are much of what I have noticed in my own explorations and trials and tribulations of experiencing meaning in life. I am grateful also for the interviewer who goes in rapid pace to ensure that Emily covers a lot of ground in useful depth of her knowledge in this area. I truly hope you enjoy this amazing interview.
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“I feel like I belong everywhere I go, no matter where it is or who I’m with, as long as I never betray myself. And the minute I become who you want me to be, in order to fit in and make sure people like me, is the moment I no longer belong anywhere. And that is hard. I mean that’s a hard practice, that’s an everyday practice.”
-Brene Brown
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Where Courage Lives
Even where there is fear, it doesnt mean we wont overcome. That is where courage lives.
Just wanted to share, that it seems like I will be required to be mostly straightedge. Maybe a little portion of a hookah every once in a blue might be ok, but even that I dont know.
- I cannot smoke cigarettes because even one now will create in me a hacking coughing fit
- I cannot drink alcohol because even one sip may cause me to binge where I become a danger to the lives of myself and others
- I cannot smoke weed, because the last two times I broke my abstinence from marijuana I became extremely emotionally distraught, where I am at risk of wanting to leave this world.
Looks like this leaves me with tea and hot sauce 🙂
I ran into this very nice talk, and included some great quotes below:
“…for a life to be meaningful, you cant keep looking at the life. You have to see how that life is placed in larger, broader context.”
“…a life that is rich in happiness and rich in meaning….theologian Frederick Buechner I think would label that: finding your calling.”
“Your calling, Buechner says, is that place where your deep gladness, and the world’s deep hunger, meets. Your deep gladness is about you, about what makes you engaged and alive.”
“Finding your calling is discovering what it is that makes you feel alive. And then taking those gifts and skills and moving them out into the world to feed the world’s hunger.”
“…the tension we feel between what we want and what the world needs, is in fact something we don’t want to eliminate, but instead we want to encourage and cultivate.”
“When the world pushes and presses and prods and occasionally pummels you, it is in those moments that you can begin to imagine something different. You need the world and all its adversity, just as desperately as the world needs you.”
“To lead a happy and meaningful life, is to understand the tension that exists between what we want and what the world needs, and to recognize that tension as the gift that it is.”
-Mark Hébert
“Happiness comes and goes. But when life is really good and when things are really bad, having meaning gives you something to hold on to.”
Emily Esfahani Smith
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Open
Open,
OPEN,
OPEN UP to the Beautiful Life I have Now.
If I could kiss every moment,
with full blown lips,
I would tell it “Thank you for being here,”
to let it know that its
presence is appreciated.
You know, I can do this.
I cannot wait for others to accept me. I must accept myself.
This is an old draft of the first part of Spark The Flame. It looks different than the way the first part looks today. Enjoy 🙂
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This is Your Life
There is no other
You are a unique individual, and there is beauty in the unique. When people or things stand out, it is because of their difference. They stand out when they refuse to be like the others, when they allow themselves to shine.
Growth
Growth is a law by which you can choose to participate or not. Apparently this law is connected with happiness and satisfaction, for if you are not growing you are dying, and you will gain the corresponding feelings.
People need to grow, it is a need that not everyone realizes. If you are not bettering yourself in something…learning something, building something you care about, working towards a purpose important to you – if you are not growing in some way, you will experience the consequences thru your feelings. Your feelings will reflect to you the stagnation that has become your life. These feelings come about in part to spur you into some form of forward movement. If you are not growing, you are dying.
Potential
Your ability to do things, to accomplish, comes from nowhere else but you. If you look to others for your power, you will never find it. If you allow others to exert power over you, they will readily do so.
There is no limit, no cap on your potential. Limitations exist only when you believe in them. “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, either way you’re right.” – Henry Ford
When you accept limitations placed on you by someone else, or by society, you are doing so voluntarily. Those limitations are completely false and fictitious…until you believe them.
No one can stop you. The world is yours. Only you can stop yourself, with a mindset full of false limitations. Failure does not occur unless you give up.
Human potential is unlimited, without boundaries, without borders. There is no end until you say so. The race is over when you stop running. Otherwise, there is only persistence, progress, and growth.
It’s up to you, it’s always up to you. You can accept all kinds of false limitations placed upon you by others, and you can even conjure them unto yourself. However, this results in nothing more than parlor tricks, because these limitations are not truly there – the illusion is created with smoke and mirrors, and dissipates as you move to conquer it. Suddenly, all that is left is a clear path to your ambitions and well beyond. Take it. Follow your heart and passion and realize you are in command of your life, no one else.
Every storm eventually ends. Every poison has an antithesis. Every problem has a solution.
You are unlimited by nature, and so is your potential.
Choice
Choice is all around you, every moment of life is comprised of choice. Even when there seems to be no choice, choice is all you have. Whether they are “good,” “bad,” or unacknowledged, choices and options will be your constant companion for all your days. The more you open up to the possibilities around you, the more choices you will begin to “see.” Whether you see them or not, they are there.
You are never closed in, you are never left without options. That is the opposite of life. Without choice there wouldn’t be life.
Only you can decide what your options are. Who is to say what is an option for you and what is not? Don’t let anyone dictate what your choices are. You will always have more options than you, or anybody else, can ever realize.
This is Your Life
This is Your Life. Take it. If you don’t exercise control over your life then someone else will. What gives them right to have control over the life that belongs to you? Find and select a purpose and run with it. Nothing is out of your league, nothing is unobtainable. Decide what you want, and make it so.
Power
The height of laziness is when you refuse to take responsibility over what happens to you. When you do not take responsibility you transform yourself into a victim. As long as something else made your life the way it is, then something else is in control. If you believe you are where you are because of other forces, you internalize the role of the victim. The victim, who holds no power. The victim, who does not wield control over his or her own circumstances. The victim, who cannot do anything about their situation because they are at the mercy of other people, culture, society. The role of the victim leaves you powerless, a broken vessel tossed by the chaos of a hurricane.
When you choose to be a victim, you relinquish your power. When you accept power, you cannot be a victim, because power means that you are in control. You are in control, and your world is your responsibility. You can be the captain of your ship, steering with purpose, direction, and control; or you can be the broken vessel, no captain, no leadership, no control, crashing about the rugged water – the victim who holds no sway over the circumstances of his or her life, but rather is at the behest of external forces.
As long as you are a victim you do not have power. Do you see that they cannot coexist? Being a victim means “I am not in control of what happens to me.” Power means “I am in control of what happens to me.” The choice is yours to make. The more power you want, the more responsibility you must accept for what happens to you. Those who wield the most inner power are never “victims,” they accept full responsibility for what they experience – good, bad or ugly.
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Victim Power
“Others are responsible for “I am responsible for what happens to me” what happens to me”
Choose.
Change
Things are meant to change. People are meant to change. Growth is change, so is death. When something outlives its usefulness and purpose, it must go. Empires that lasted hundreds of years have eventually fallen. Languages, customs, and artifacts have disappeared into history so that new ones may arise. Change is a part of life, and humans are agents of that change. Over hundreds of thousands of years we have affected and changed the outcomes of countless species of plants, animals, and earthly terrain. Dinosaurs roamed the planet for millions of years. Millions! And now those dinosaurs are gone.
Things change, people change. You cannot prevent yourself from affecting and changing the world. Just by living, you affect the entire planet.
Your power is the power of growth and change. You embody the agent of change. If you direct it onto the path of your ambition, change would occur with every single step. And when your path converges with others heading towards the same ambition, with the same direction of change, the results are amplified exponentially. Things cannot remain the same so long as you are discontent. Change is your right, your nature, your duty.
Journey
Any way you cut it, you are on a journey. And you are the only one who can decide what this journey will entail. This is similar to the journey of an RPG video game, except the video game exists in a world of limitation. You and I do not. Our world is without limitation, without boundary, and is awaiting your commands. You have the choices. You have the power to create change. You are living an entire lifetime of experiences exclusive to you. You are the captain, you are in control. Now you decide…what’s next?
Categories
Everyone Has Their Own Path
Everyone has their own Path