“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
Category: Spark The Flame (el libro)
A book that desires to inspire people to see and reach more of their positive potential. This in turn helps others.
1) Be grateful. for your Life, first thing when you wake up, and last thing when you go to sleep, every single day.
2) Interact more. with people you Love.
3) Consume inspiration. and uplifting content: books, audios, videos, events,
4) Practice meditation. every single day. At least 2 minutes a day.
This is a clip of world-renowned physicist Brian Cox, speaking about how the particles of the universe are interconnected.
The first guest ever on the Spark the Flame podcast, my mom! Zoraida Diaz, with over 20 years experience in professional counseling. Psychotherapist, LCSW (Licensed Clinical Social Worker), CASAC (Credentialed Alcohol + Substance Abuse Counselor). Absolute overall wonderful incredible person, full of grit for Life and the Spirit, and my personal hero.
Was having issues with the audio, so couldnt include an intro and outro this time. But will try to have it working for next time. Enjoy!
After uploading the most recent podcast, I ran into this short video of Viktor Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Meaning:
Also found online here:
https://www.ted.com/talks/viktor_frankl_youth_in_search_of_meaning
He speaks about aiming for your greater potential to reach one’s true possibilities. Enjoy 🙂
I ran into this excerpt, regarding how healthy it is to explore the unknown parts of ourselves, sometimes referred to as our “shadow”.
Excerpt is by Caroline Myss, co-creator of the work “Sacred Path of the Shadow”:
If you dont see many signs,
it can be difficult to believe.
The irony is,
if you believe,
you will see more signs.
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Open
Open,
OPEN,
OPEN UP to the Beautiful Life I have Now.
Finally been able to upload the talk I gave at the NYU Bookstore, July 21, 2016.
The talk mostly covers some thoughts on writing itself, but towards the end I briefly speak about my book Spark The Flame.
Please forgive the low video quality.
Enjoy 🙂
I am honored, grateful, and more than excited to be invited to participate at a live event at the NYU Bookstore on July 21, 2016, from 6pm – 7:30pm. The event is focused on self-publishing, and I am one of a few authors who will be talking about the experience.
I am going to use the opportunity to talk about some things I find very important for writing: voice; writing as art/passion; inspiration/creativity.
I will also briefly talk about my book Spark The Flame, and will be very excited to talk to anyone there, sign books, etc.
Thank you 🙂
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.
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Feel Appreciation
Feel appreciation. Don’t look just to think it. Feel it;
without words.
Literally.
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I cannot wait for others to accept me. I must accept myself.
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Spark The Flame ebook
Today is publishing day for Spark the Flame ebook! The printed version will likely be out in early 2016.
This ebook is free for everyone, forever. I hope it is useful to many people around the world for generations. Please share it with anyone and enjoy.
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The official publishing of Spark the Flame, the book, is coming soon. Should be available in print, and for free download on this website, before this Christmas. Maybe much sooner 🙂
The cleaner your motives, the safer you are.
Another way to say it is:
To clear up your dangers, clean up your motives.
Act with good intention towards Life and its inhabitants, and Life will reciprocate towards you.
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When you realize you don’t have control of the situation…
Trust
Trust in Life
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?
Love is key, and you are the keyhole
Things are fine for you when you feel fine for you. They may come out of nowhere, and shock you, but if you hold the “this is fine”, “it is going to be ok” feeling constant, things reorder themselves to be fine for you.
If your perspective is at a general high/up/optimistic constant, Life will appear magical, because things are reordered in ways that appear crazy, to meet you on your perspective. Throughout the low times, your high perspective continues to carry you through, until Life comes seemingly out of nowhere again to meet your high perspective with a beautiful gracious blessed set of events.
Keep your perspective high, your optimism, and you invite the perception and experience of a charmed Life.
Here is another excerpt from Spark The Flame, as it is currently evolving:
Faith converts adversity into harmony. Faith is the trust that when you aim to do the right thing in thought and action, Life evolves well for you. Faith is the heart muscle of your spiritual core. This muscle is especially exercised when you encounter adversity. Based on your perception, things are either in the process of working out for you or they are not. When you hold the premise that things are working out for you no matter what is occurring in your Life, and you do all you can to aid that premise in thought and action, this is a faith that converts adversity into harmony. Sometimes it works transparently, sometimes very mysteriously; but given time, faith always proves itself. Always.
The effort to recover from adversity and mistakes brings you growth and elicits assistance from Life. Challenges will occur all your life, they serve as a way to grow. If you are not growing, you are dying. For humans, stagnation devolves into decay. There are always ways to grow and you must always exercise this effort. Sincere effort opens further paths to progress.
Mistakes are part of Life and must be forgiven. You must forgive yourself. You must forgive others. You can always change your course and recover; this is human blessing.
Regardless of how it appears from this vantage point, there is a great harmony to everything in existence. Somehow there is benefit to this: what is happening now. If you aim to do right, something good has to come of it. It must by universal law.
Doing the right thing means playing your harmonious part. You are a piece of the puzzle that is the Whole. When you live abiding by the uniqueness of your core, your particular piece of the puzzle, you are being authentic.
Authenticity is the special way you will create change. It is a special way that you find meaning. When you are not trying to fit in as some other piece of the puzzle, but rather unleashing the freedom of expression that flows between your core and the rest of the world, you are running a divine plan imprinted in your Soul. This gives you relief, inspiration and empowerment. Authenticity will unlock your passion, unbridled divine energy that flows to you and through you because you have aligned so well with the greater harmony. You are literally living the part you were made for. The world needs your authenticity, and all are blessed when you embrace it.
For true authenticity you must forgive and accept yourself. The more you can forgive and accept yourself, the more you can forgive and accept others. Remember, Life has already forgiven and accepted you, always. This is healing. This is necessary for humanity to survive.
The following is a quoted ‘loving kindness meditation’:
If anyone has hurt me or harmed me knowingly or unknowingly in thought, word or deed, I freely forgive them.
And I too ask forgiveness if I have hurt anyone or harmed anyone knowingly or unknowingly in thought, word or deed.
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“And herein we find the secret of propelling our heart’s desires from the state of imagination to the reality of our everyday lives. It’s our ability to feel as if our dreams have already come to life, our wishes are fulfilled, and our prayers already answered.”
The Divine Matrix – Gregg Braden
Note: If you already feel the way you would if this circumstance were true, then on many levels, it doesn’t matter whether it is actually true or not. It seems like this is often the place where the magic happens….