An Inside Job

Friday, July 9, 2010

Follow through and complete

Follow through and complete


"Activity is not achievement. It is not enough to rush about beginning a lot of things and keeping busy. A well-spent life is one that rounds out what it has begun."

-- Eknath Easwaran

Intention and the words we speak are powerful. When we say we are going to do something, we set energy in motion. When we fail to act or complete our intention, we drain our energy. We lose our power.

We would be wise to choose our words carefully -- to really mean what we say and to honour the commitments we have made.

"Genius begins great works; labor alone finishes them."

-- Joseph Joubert

"Good to begin well, better to end well."

-- English proverb

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Sing your own song

Sing your own song


"Since you are like no other being ever created since the beginning of time, you are incomparable."

-- Brenda Ueland

Great forces are directing you to conform to the patterns of your society. You have DNA that has been handed down from generation to generation, coding repeated behaviour patterns into your being. You have archetypal energies setting the standards for how you behave as a man or a woman, as husband or wife, as father or mother .... You are immersed in consensual reality, whereby the world around you reflects societal understanding of how life has been and is to be.

At the same time, you have an even greater force within you inspiring you to wake up and recognize the reality of who you are. This force, the creative power underlying the entire universe, is urging you to create brand new standards of reality.

The status quo is blind to our creative power. Create a brand new world for yourself, one that meets your deepest needs, and you will help raise the quality of consciousness of the entire world.

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

-- Gandhi

Sunday, June 13, 2010

We can't escape

"Most of our obstacles would melt away if, instead of cowering before them, we should make up our minds to walk boldly through them."

-- Orison Swett Marden

We can’t escape problems and negativity. Escaping just brings denial and suppression - we continue to carry the problem with us. Ironically, it is our lack of acceptance and resistance to the problem that creates the pain. Resistance builds up an energy wall or block that, if not discharged, gets suppressed into the body. These blocks identify places where we have not enough understanding or love.

For health, we must work through what we seek to avoid. How do we do this? We can love parts of ourselves that we don’t like. We can seek the lessons we are being invited to learn through the problem. We can examine our beliefs and seek to see different perspectives and a bigger picture. As our perspectives grow, more of life makes sense and has meaning.

"The Lord is a good psychologist: he knows the way our minds run. Turmoil can be the Lord's way of tapping us on the shoulder and saying, 'Don't forget me.'"

-- Eknath Easwaran

Friday, June 4, 2010

Relieve the pressure cooker

"Even though you may want to move forward in your life, you may have one foot on the brakes. In order to be free, we must learn how to let go. Release the hurt. Release the fear. Refuse to entertain your old pain. The energy it takes to hang onto the past is holding you back from a new life."

-- Mary Manin Morrissey

Journaling is a great way to release and let go. To get things off your chest. Our minds are our own worst enemies. The same thoughts go round and round in the same old ways and keep us stuck.

If something bothers you, write about it. Get it out so you can see it from a different perspective. Let it out. Let it go.

Owning and healing your pressure cooker is an important step in claiming your power, building your esteem and making your stand.

"In truth, to attain to interior peace, one must be willing to pass through the contrary to peace. Such is the teaching of the Sages."

-- Swami Brahmanada

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Value just being

"To do great work a man must be very idle as well as very industrious."

-- Samuel Butler

Many of us have been taught to believe that we are valued for what we do, not just for who we are. ‘Doing’ is important, but to keep life in balance, we also need time to just ‘be.’

Henry David Thoreau expressed this so well in Walden Pond:

"There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of the head or hand.

"Sometimes, on a summer morning, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a revery, amidst the pines and hickories and sumacs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sang around or flitted noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling in at my west window, or the noise of some traveller's wagon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time.

"I grew in those seasons like corn in the night, and they were far better than any work of the hands would have been."