The Power of Personal Responsibility

There are many time in life when it easy to get overwhelmed by the constant demands that life makes of us. This is often because we have somehow given away our authority to others.

Whenever you feel that there are things that you "have to" do, or there is a long list of "shoulds" in our lives, we have given up our personal responsibility.

Everything that we do is our choice! We have freewill. We choose to create our lives in whatever way we see fit.

It is not uncommon to get hemmed in by other people and outside forces that threaten us with negative consequences if we do not conform to their wishes, but we always have the right, (if not the responsibility) to say no to the excessive and harmful demands that are not in alignment with ourselves.

 Personal Responsibility is Power! When you know that there is no higher authority than yourself, and that you are the only one responsible for your life, you become empowered to take action! Actions that help to make the world a better place, actions that bring joy and peace into your life and into the lives of others, actions of your own choosing!

You have the right to make decisions based on what you believe is best. How many times have you listened to others when you knew you shouldn't have? That stops today.


Make the choice to honor your inner wisdom and create the life that you want to live.

Life is wonderful when you put yourself in charge of it. Try it for a week, see how it fits, I'm sure you won't be disappointed!

New Beginnings

Hello everyone. I know it has been a while since I have written anything. I have been rather internal during my most recent shift and I didn't feel like interrupting the process by writing.

There are times on a personal path when it is important to go within and withdraw from the outside world for a time. It gives you a chance to break up old patterns and dissolve unnecessary aspects of your personality.

When making these changes, it is much easier to change when you are not busy maintaining the way you used to be.

Personal evolution and growth come from within (although it can be encouraged from outside). I definitely want to continue this blog, even if its style will change.

I will have more posts shortly, I wanted to keep you all updated.

Learning to Listen

It is well know that it is important to be a good listener, but what does it take to be a great one?

Listening as an Art

Silence is Golden

There is more to listening than simply hearing things. Real listening begins when you begin to understand what you are hearing.

Start by understanding that even though people are using the same words you do, it doesn't mean that they saying the same thing!

Or, as I like to say, "Just because we are both speaking English, doesn't mean we are speaking the same language."

Different people have different beliefs and experiences that and flavor and meaning to the words they use. The tonal quality of they way they say a word can change its meaning. Different emphasis on different parts of a spoken phrase can change its meaning.

In the same way, when listening to someone, be aware that what they are saying may not be what they are really trying to communicate.

Hidden Communication

• "Fine!" said with a genuine smile on their face: "Wonderful, life couldn't be better!"
• "Fine!" same shortly with a frown and crossed arms: "Leave me alone! I don't want to be bothered!" (although I suspect they really want to talk to somebody about it.)
• "Fine..." with slumped shoulders and a sad expression: "I feel very alone and nobody cares... *sigh*"

As you can see, even a simple word like "fine" is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to communication.

Listening to Body Language

Body Language

A person's facial expressions and body language communicate far more of what a person is saying than the words themselves. 

If you want to know what a person is silently sharing, pay attention to their body language

Body language reading is a fairly simple skill to pick up. You already do it, even if you are not aware of it. 

By paying attention to body language you will begin to get a fuller picture of what is actually going on with someone else.

A recommendation when reading body language is: Don't jump to conclusions! (This is the same for listening, by the way.) 

You should have at least 3 points of congruent data before making even a tentative theory about what they are saying.

Understanding Motivations

What's your motive?

When listening to people, I generally want to understand what they really want. Some people are just trying to sell you something. Some people just want you to validate their sob story. Some people want your attention. Some people are just lonely and want to make a connection. Some people want to share something that makes them feel great!

When you can tune in to a persons motivations, you can gain great insight into a person. This insight will allow you communicate more effectively with people by helping them to feel heard. This is what they are really communicating. (Effectively or not.)

If you have ever felt that someone was listening to you, but you still didn't feel heard, this is what was missing. they just didn't get it and the "it" was what you were really trying to share underneath the words.

Caring and Other Tips

The most important thing for great listening is great caring. If you don't care about someone, it's impossible to listen. The more you actually care about someone the more you actually listen.

Love is not the same as caring. Compassion is not the same a caring. Being truly interested in the other person is caring.

You can love them and yet not really care to be bothered with how they actually feel. You can have compassion for another person, yet not care about the details. When you desire to be fully present for the other person as if they are the most important person in the world and you want what is truly best for them, then and only then do you completely have it. That is how you listen.

Listening Tips

• Care (I mean really care!)
• Be respectful.
• Don't interrupt.
• Share relevant (and beneficial) information.
• Seek to understand where they are coming from and what they really mean.
• Don't take it personal. It's not about you. (usually)
• Don't worry, be happy!

In Conclusion,

Conversation!

You have everything you need to become a good listener already. With these tips, you are well on your way to becoming a better listener. After all, you cared enough to read this!

Good luck and have fun!

Organization as Creativity

Creative Organization

Today, I was doing a bit of organization around the house and at first it felt tedious. Like it was the most boring, non-creative thing a person could be doing with their time.

I kept feeling that I was missing something, and my intuition was ringing. I felt drawn to read from a book I've recently purchased on Kundalini Yoga. 

While reading a section on the second chakra and creativity, it hit me that organization is creativity! I felt an immediate release of tension around the concept of sorting and organization.

Any act of creation has organization in it, and any act of organization has creativity in it. In order to decide how to sort things, you must first create rules to follow, and following these rules allow you to manifest your desires.

Life is and endless cycle of creation and destruction. An endless cycle of organization and reorganization!

So the next time you have a tedious task of organization ahead of you, remember that you can use it as an opportunity to be creative and have fun!

Good Decision Making Skills

Decisions, Decisions

Sometimes in life there are times when it is necessary to make quick good decisions.

It is not always easy, but when you master good decision making skills, it can be!

Foundations of Good Decision Making

There are many aspects of making good decisions, many of which happen internally way before the decision is made!

You will need a clear thinking process, emotional control and situational awareness.

Clear Thinking Process

Clarity

There are several concepts that must be known in order to be effective
(in this order).

• What are my goals? 
• What is the situation?
• What actions do I take?

What Are my Goals?

Goal Setting

For personal power, you should have a primary goal or purpose, the top three roles, the ten methods and overall strategy. 

For simplicity, I am going to go over goals and purposes at this time.

Let's say your primary goal is total mastery, and three of your subgoals are: learning, loving, and healing. 

Everything you do should involve your primary goal(s). 

When deciding what exercise to do, ask: "What exercise would lead me to total mastery?" or "How could I exercise in a learning, loving and healing way that improves my mastery?" 

You get the idea.

Knowing what your goals are is like your own personal north star! They help keep you moving consistently in the direction that you choose. Your goals also allow you to know if something is not in alignment with your path. 

For instance, it is not in alignment with the goal of learning to keep yourself ignorant of something you could learn! (Even if it is something you are afraid to know!) 

It is in alignment to learn something that helps your mastery!

What is the Situation?

Situational Awareness

Knowing what is happening is of vital importance when making good decisions. If you are trying to find your way using a map, you must know where you are in order for the map to be useful. In the same way, understanding the situation and what is important is necessary.

To start, you need to ask yourself the basics: Who, what, when, where, why and how? For rapid understanding and decision making, I recommend this order instead: 

• What?
• Why?
• How?

What?

"What?" in my mind includes who, what, when, where and how. It is the first step because, with What? you are looking at your observations and the facts of any given situation. Before you can know what to do you must know what is happening!

It is also more streamlined to only ask one question than five. 

Look a picture of something happening and ask:

•  "What is happening?" 

Now, look at the same picture and ask:

• "Who is in this picture?"
• "When is this happening?"
• "Where is this happening?" 
• "How is this happening?"

See how long that took? 

If you need more detailed information and have the time, feel free to ask more detailed (and pertinent) questions. Otherwise, just ask What?

Why?

Why?

With "Why?" you are trying to understand why things are happening. This is a call for looking beneath the surface events and understanding the underlying causes of what is happening. 

That may be seeking to know peoples' motivations for actions. For instance, someone who is accidentally stepping on your foot calls for a different action than someone maliciously stepping on your foot.

This is the point where you do some quick interpretation of what is happening. For easy understanding, I suggest "Is it good or bad?" or "Is this beneficial or harmful?" then when it comes time to decide how to act, you will know whether you need to correct it or appreciate it.

How?

Help is on the way!

Now that you know what is happening, why it is happening and what your goals are, you should have all the information you need to make a good decision!

The first thing to do is to decide what is important and what is not. Temporarily set aside what is not important and focus on what is important. 

Begin taking actions in order of most important to least important. In this way you will ensure that priorities are taken care of.

Long Term Decision Making

More Complexity

For less immediate concerns, you may have time to brainstorm various options and solutions to your situation. 

I recommend coming up with at least ten different ways to proceed. By doing this, you increase your feelings of resourcefulness and capability. 

After determining options, think about the three most likely outcomes of each option. 

I usually think of the worst, the best, and the most likely. After looking at your options this way, you should have a few winners.

Act on the first of your top three and keep the other two in reserve, in case the first one doesn't work out. In this way you will always know what to do next.

Quick Decisions

Indecisive

If your course of action is still not clear, and you must act immediately, I recommend the following:

1. Take the first action that becomes apparent.
2. Observe the results.
3. Are things the way you want them? 
4. If yes: Awesome you are done!
5. If no: Go back to step 1.

Good Decisions Summary

Course of Action Flowchart

When making decisions, keep in mind the concept of trial and error. It is similar to solving a maze.

You know where to start, you know where to finish and then you make the best choices available and hope for the best. 

If you hit a dead end, no big deal, make different choices until you reach your goal. 

With time and practice, good decision making and success will be yours!

Taking Care of the Phsyical

Sometimes when people are pursuing personal mastery, they forget to take care of the physical (especially if they are focused on spiritual growth and evolution. It is important to remember that everything is connected and the physical world the most obvious part of our spiritual existence.

There are many aspects of physical reality that can be a drag to take care of, but part of mastery is learning how to turn even the most negative experiences into pure gold. There are many of those experiences that become incredibly joyful when approached with wisdom and insight.

Taking Care of Your Body

The Body is the Temple of your Soul. Learning how to properly take care of it (and learning how to stop doing things that harm it) are part of the mastery process. The key to taking good care of your body is remembering that it is your closest friend and ally in this journey of life. If it suffers, you suffer. If it is healthy, you are healthy.


When it comes to dealing with things of a "higher" nature, if your body is unhealthy, you cannot receive information as clearly, channel power as effectively, and radiate joy as abundantly. Taking care of your body allows you to function in this world with unity, grace and power.


The body has a variety of needs, that are all  fairly easy to take care of: 

• Good Hygiene
• Good Intake: Food, Air and Water
• Good Work and Exercise
• Rest, Relaxation and Relationships

Good Hygiene

Good Hygiene includes more than just staying clean and taking regular baths, it also includes having a clean living area and positive healthy thoughts. Keeping your living area healthy allows you to reduce your exposure to unhealthy things. Ugly clutter and bad smells not only effect you physically, they can also effect you emotionally and psychologically (not to mention energetically).

Emotional hygiene means not dwelling in negative feelings. Whether that means feeling negative towards your body (OMG! I'm so fat!), feeling negative towards your environment, (Uhg! I hate this carpet, it's so ugly!), or people (Argh! People drive me crazy!).

Instead of focusing on negative feelings, learn to focus on the positive changes that these feelings are suggesting to you!

• "I'm so fat" turns into: "I want to take better care of my body with better diet and exercise." 
• "I hate this carpet" turns into: "I want a beautiful carpet, how can I make that happen?" 
• "People drive me crazy turns into: "I want to be able to get along better with people, what can I do to change that?"

Mental hygiene means healthy, positive thoughts instead of unhealthy, negative ones. Positive to the core! Not positive on the surface, with an ugly negative center. Real positive thoughts! You know what I mean.

Taking positive actions create a positive environment. A positive environment creates a positive body. Learn to see yourself as part of your environment and it becomes clear what to do to improve your health.

Good Intake: Food, Air and Water

Ahhh, the good old basic survival needs, what would we do without them? Probably die! (unless you are one of those people who have learned how to live without them. Congratz!) You more than likely have heard how to take care of the physical ascpect of this, so moving right along.

Much like good hygiene, good intake requires you to have positive feelings about what you are intaking.

Things to watch out for:

• "OMG! This food is so high in calories and cholesterol, I'm going to get so fat!" turns into: "This food is helping me build a better body through good nutrition" (if it isn't, don't eat it, or learn to love it anyway!)
• "Uhg, the air is so polluted and nasty!" turns into: "I only take what I need from the air and leave the rest!)
• "City water is so awful!" turns into: "the water I drink keeps me hydrated and healthy!"

Once again, it is important to take positive actions in regards to your intake and to do so in a positive way. A piece of cake, once a day won't hurt you, 30 might. So don't be negative to yourself if you decide to have a dessert. Part of good health is enjoying life and the things you do.

Good Work and Exercise

You body is at it's healthiest when it doing good work and enjoying good exercise. Your physical health is 

a direct reflection in how you feel about what you are doing with your life. (People who have taken my body reading class know that this is also reflected by the condition of your car.) 

If you life is full of purpose and meaning and you believe that you are doing what is best, your physical health will be amazing! When you are doing things to make the world a better place, you naturally fall into harmony with nature. Your body will thrive in the healthy environment that you create.

Do what you love and what you love will do you! LOL! Doing something you believe in, in a positive way, helps you to feel good about yourself. Good feelings = Good health. Bad feelings = Bad health. 

When it comes to exercise, the same thing applies. All the jogging in the world won't help you if you hate every single step you take. You're likely to get injured that way (if only so you can stop doing something you hate.) 

However, if every jog, you feel like it's heaven on earth and what a joy to be alive and jogging, then your health will improve by leaps and bounds!

Your body, mind and emotions are all connected. They all must be healthy for you to be totally healthy. 

It's fun and easy!

Rest, Relaxation and Relationships

An often overlooked area for physical health is Rest, Relaxation and Relationships. When our lives are in alignment, these things are interwoven with the other categories. To be effective, you need to learn how to rest while you work, relax while you eat and have fantastic relationships with the people you are around.

Learning to rest is as easy as doing things in cycles. Everything moves in cycles. Imagine the heart. It is constantly working 24/7 right? Nope. It works then rests, works then rests. Sometimes faster, sometimes slower, yet it continuously functions our whole lives.

In the same way, learning how to do things in natural cycles will allow you to work continuously your whole life!

Now you may not want to do this unless you have mastered relaxation (otherwise known as fun.) When you can make everything you do fun, life becomes endless cycles of pleasure and enjoyment.

Last but not least, relationships. Learning how to enjoy being around people, (or learning to only be around people you enjoy) is large part of our happiness of being human. Here's a tip: Focus on what you like about the people you are around. If you can't find anything, then you don't want to.

Now sometimes people are too toxic to be around, and the answer there is not to try to make it work, it is to get away from them. You do not need to stay in abusive relationships. EVER. If they are just irritating to you that's different. See if you can change how you feel, with people you trust.

Physical Health and You

As you can see, your physical health is more than just taking care of physical needs. It is also taking care of your emotions, thoughts and spirit. Total health is part of Total Mastery!

The Path of Mastery

I talk about mastery a lot, so I figured I should explain what I mean when I am talking about mastery.

Mastery is effectiveness, elegance and usefulness to the highest degree in all aspects of life. A tall order, no? 


The amazing thing about mastery is that you can focus on any one particular area of your life and then apply that mastery to all other areas of your life. By doing this you can become highly proficient in many different skills and abilities.

My particular focus is self mastery. Learn to understand your self, then everything else opens its doors to you. There are many aspects to who you are and it is sometimes useful to categorize the different areas of your being. There are many different ways of doing this and they are all valid to the point they are useful.

It is useful to think about your different levels of being as a rainbow. Each color is not really separate, they actually blend together, yet have the appearance of being separate colors.

Even the rainbow itself has the appearance of existing independently, yet it could not exist without the water droplets suspended in the air, the light being refracted through the water, or without our eyes seeing it!

In other words, you have the appearance of being a separate individual and yet you could not exist without everything else in the universe! The doorway to greater understanding of the Self is whatever is easiest to know. The best place to start is with you.

I would like to show you various aspects that you can learn to master, in order of obvious to the more subtle and the advantages of each.

The Physical

The is often the easiest area to start, mainly because it it the easiest to experience and share with other people. However, even in this area of reality, there is quite a bit of disagreement in to how it all works.

You could spend a lifetime exploring the physical universe and never run out of new things to discover.

Anything in the physical world can be used as a doorway to greater understanding. The best are physical activities that increase awareness and mindfulness.

Tai Chi, Yoga, Running, Swimming, Hiking and pretty much any outdoor activity can be useful. Creating physical things by hand is wonderful as well. Pay attention to the process and insight into the workings of reality will begin to show through.

You know you are beginning to master the physical when: 

• You are physically healthy all the time
• You do not have "accidents"
• The things you own do not break or wear out
• Money comes to you easily and effortlessly
• People, places and things you are around become better physically 

The Emotional

Learning mastery of your emotions is mandatory for developing mastery of everything else. Emotions can be wonderful things, except when they aren't!

Depression, hopelessness, and fear are all examples of emotions that must be mastered. Even more positive emotions can become troublesome. Love can turn into addiction and create codependent relationships or even hate.

Don't be afraid of your emotions. When you have mastered them, the become your strongest allies in manifesting your intent into reality. There are many ways to master your emotions and the emotional exercises that help the most are ones that increase awareness and control.

Meditation is one example. Learning to delay gratification and to proceed to take action in the face of adversity is another. Any physical activity taken while paying attention to your emotions will give you great insight.

Mastering your emotions help to lift away the clouds and fog in your internal world allowing you to be more effective in your day to day life and see and think more clearly.

You will know when you are beginning to achieve emotional mastery when:

• You do not get upset easily
• You are able to maintain an effective emotional distance
• You understand and can feel the emotions of others
• You can choose, at will how you are going to feel
• You know how you really feel about things at all times

The Mental

If you learn how to use your mind effectively, everything else becomes easier on the road to mastery. The mind is the powerhouse of creativity. It is what allows you to shape your life as you choose. It is what even allows you to choose in the first place. 


The mind, if allowed to run rampant, can make your worst nightmares into a reality, but if mastered can create heaven on earth!

There are many exercises that help to master your mind. Meditation is good here as well. Mental puzzles and games like Sudoku are good. Literal puzzles are great for this.

Using logic, deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning effectively to figure out how and why things are the way they are is extremely useful.

Choosing consciously what you are going to do, often by effective planning, role playing, or freewill exercises are also extremely effective.

You know you are beginning to master your mind when: 

• You are quickly able to ascertain the truth of situations and things instantly
• You can tell when you or someone else is not being truthful
• It becomes a small matter to determine how things function
• You can effortlessly choose the right course of action
• Your thoughts are clear, concise and accurate.

The Spiritual

Here's where the real fun begins. There is no real consensus on what is in the spiritual, so I will tell you what I  know. The spiritual is a mysterious realm that by its nature seems internal when in fact it is in everything and is everywhere and in everyone. It is the realm of dreams, inspiration and other realities. It is the realm of unity, oneness and the human soul all wrapped into one.


There are actually many levels of existence at this level that would take many books and many, many lifetimes to even begin to explain. the easiest place to start here is the human soul. your soul is actually the part of you that is immortal. It continues from lifetime to lifetime and gathers wisdom and experiences as it goes. It is your higher self and ultimately wants what is best for it and you. Some people call it their guardian angel, some their spirit guides, but most of the time it is actually you. (there are such things a spirit guides and guardian angles too.)


At the highest level of the spiritual, there is unity with the divine, otherwise known as illumination or enlightenment. When this alignment is maintained, things are wonderful. you know everything, see everything and are everything and that is a pale description of it. Get there and see for yourself.

You will know when you are beginning to master the spiritual when: 

• You have a deep sense of purpose and meaning in life
• You are guided intuitively to be at the right place at the right time
• You are able to see the deeper meaning behind events
• You radiate a beneficial aura of peace, love and acceptance

And Beyond!

You may have noticed that in all the sections, that I said "beginning to master". That is because mastery, like life, is a never ending journey, that you can take as far as you want. In your journey on the path of mastery, you will find amazingly useful insights that you can use to help yourself and others. There is no limit to what you can accomplish. 


Good luck and have fun!