Moving to space

I have yet to find someone who enjoys moving and to be honest I feel like I would be safe in saying that there are not a whole lot of people the actually enjoy the process of moving from one place to another. With myself facing an upcoming move I found myself starting to dread the whole process and start to really not look forward to the day when it all had to happen.

Then it dawned on me, everything that occurs in life is an opportunity of some sort and it is all just a matter of how I want to view things. Moving is an excellent opportunity to simplify my life and to get rid of and part with all the clutter that has accumulated; I am able to create more space in my everyday life.

Much like creating space by ridding myself of the accumulated clutter of life our brains often function the same way when it comes to making decisions in life. I find that when I get a new idea I tend to want to think about everything and contemplate the what about this and what about that scenarios and in essence am filling my own brain with so much clutter that it begins to cloud over the original idea!

Have you ever found yourself trying to remember something important and you know you need to do something, but just cant seem to get your mind wrapped around it? It’s a lot like looking for 1 piece of paper in an office scattered with papers.

How about have you ever gone through and done a big cleaning and found some amazing things that you forgot you had all along? Think about all the hidden gems and amazing memories that you could be clouding out within your own mind!

Your mind is a powerful tool, but it does require you to pay attention to what you’re putting into it and how often you give it time to unwind itself. Remember your mind works just like the rest of your body and the rest of any other machine that man has ever created. If you don’t give it some downtime to rest or give it regular maintenance it is going to burn itself out and not function to it’s full capacity.

Take some time to take inventory. Get rid of what you don’t need and whats not benefiting you. Take the time to rest and recharge and create all that extra space in your life to bring it all the amazing abundance life has to offer!

 

 

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Dependency on the Microwave

With society now fully immersed in the information age it seems like we can get anywhere or any piece of information within seconds on our computers or mobile phones. This is a great advancement in technology and believe me it definitely makes things more convenient and efficient!

However, we only tend to focus on the pros when we think about all the ways the information age has transformed the way we live. We have become accustomed now to having everything done quickly and be able to get anywhere quickly. It feels like everyone is in a rush and so dependent on getting things done right away, that many of us forget to ‘stop and smell the roses’. I use the term “us” because I am fully aware that I myself get caught up in this too. Take a look next time you’re driving in the city with traffic, notice all the impatience or the people glued to their cell phones.

The title of this post is Dependency on the Microwave and it refers to us living in a microwave society now where we want everything done as quickly and as easy as possible. We basically want to push a button, wait a minute or two, and boom have a full service result to whatever we were seeking.

How many times have you found yourself driving to pick something up when the drive lasts no more then 2 minutes? Or waiting to take the elevator up to the third floor? When did our legs stop working? Is walking 5 minutes to the grocery store that unbearable? I mean its good for the body to get some exercise, its good for the mind to slow down a bit and enjoy a nice relaxing walk, and it counter-acts our reliance on fossil fuels to accomplish everyday small tasks.

Now I’m not bashing all the great things the information age has provided us, but I want to bring awareness to how it has blinded us from the simpler aspects of life. I don’t know if the information age is making us lazy when it comes to the simple tasks or if we are just experiencing information overload and need to have some down time, but take a moment, go for a walk, and disconnect for a bit. Our ancestors lived without instant information for thousands of years, surely we could all benefit from a few down moments a week to: stop and smell the roses.

 

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Standing Alone In Time

This evening I spent some time in a sensory deprivation chamber and whist in a poem started forming. Now I cannot remember the last time I wrote a poem, but the moment felt right and I gave it a try. Here is my poem after I left the sensory deprivation chamber:

Every moment is precious, please stop and savour.

It is on, the days current flavour.

Time will elapse, like it always will.

It is here, so embrace the still.

It’s never too late, this is the freshest.

The time is now, this moment is precious.

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The Downward Spiral

The term ‘The Downward Spiral’ has such a negative connotation to it, and I mean for a good reason. The only downward spiral we ever hear about generally involves an epic series of bad events following one after another, or a celebrity battling addiction and throwing away their careers. However, I want to throw a stick into the spokes of this mindset and shed light to the other side of spiraling downwards.

The paradigm that I want to try and get across is that the downward spiral is merely a staircase that will take us down into the inner sanctums of ourselves. This is a extremely powerful process for so many aspects of life; whether it be taking the time to delve deep into our own idiosyncrasies or to tap into an endless source of creativity.

The downward spiral is an essential part of quieting our minds. When we go into a relaxed state it becomes an onion peel process wherein we quiet each noise one by one. Layer by layer or step by step we go through the process of eliminating the noise and chatter in our minds until we hit the target of absolute emptiness.

There is a lot of beauty that can come about from riding the spiral staircase downwards, it takes practice and time to develop, but I encourage you the next time you have an opportunity to go deeper into your own thoughts or your own mental quietness go deeper then you ever have before.

“When the mind is quiet endless creative beauty exists” – Unknown

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Good day, Bad Day

I know merely everyone has been asked the question ‘How was your day?’ and we either respond with a positive summary of the day or a negative one. Pretty simple yes? We ask and answer this question multiple times per week. The question ‘How was your day?’ has almost turned into a social necessity and almost view as rude if not asked.

I don’t have anything wrong with the question itself; It feels great when someone takes an interest into your day. However, I want to challenge the way we view the response of the question. Why do we need to summarize an ENTIRE day into something so demeaning as ‘Good’ or ‘Bad’?

Let me backtrack a bit. A couple days ago I had a day that most would classify as Bad! In the morning I dropped my Iphone on concrete and it went completely black. Later that afternoon at work there was some complications with a job we were doing and I got completely soaked in near freezing weather and then to top it off I got into a small car accident a couple hours later.

Good day? Or a Bad day?

Here is how I summarized it when in conversation with a friend I was asked ‘oh bad day today?’. The way that I had vied this was ‘Just a couple undesirable moments in a good day’ and that’s all it is.

We as human beings are truly in a place of amazing power, we have the ability to distinguish one moment from the next and live in ever presence. Everything that happened to me were all just moments, and a day is comprised of lots and lots of moments.

I dropped my phone and it didn’t work so I simply went and found a repair shop. $60 and 1 hour and everything was back to normal. I got soaking wet. I finished my work and went and got changed. I got into a fender bender. My fault. I went and filled out the paperwork and wait and see what happens after that. There is no time for letting these small moments ruin a good day. I had an undesirable moment and then chose to have a good moment right after it.

In life things that are undesirable will happen, and that’s fine they happen for a reason. Everything happens for a reason. Our power now comes as we have the ability to choose how we want to react to it or how we want to let it affect us.

Next time something undesirable happens think about how you want to react next? Do you want to spent time dwelling on what happened or just simply move forward, choose to make the next moment desirable and learn from what happened?

Negativity and stress are both unhealthy and they both don’t exist in the present moment of your choice. Let’s practice presence and actively choosing to make current moments desirable.

 

 

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Fluiditiy

I was recently having a conversation with a good friend the other day about how we don’t always understand why things happen. We both agreed that everything happens for a reason and that the reason was there to serve us, but I mean sometimes it’s agonizing to wonder how any of this would serves us. I had spent the entire day with a blistering headache because it took me hours to fall asleep the night before and now I was wondering how this would ever serve me!

You see I feel like often times we focus too much time and energy on the wrong aspects of life. Wondering how this would serve me, dwelling on how I couldn’t sleep, or creating excuses in life because of what has happened is merely just wasted time; time spent in the wrong dimension. The only thing that I listed above that currently takes place in the present moment is making excuses. The creation of the excuse is a present moment activity, it’s just fully based on something that happened in the past and is out of our control!

In the end, granted we take the time for reflection, we will be able to clearly see how these events have served us. I realized later that evening that the reason I was struggling to sleep was that I was not properly planning for a routine I do every night. I neglected to account that the routine takes 40 minutes and that I need to start it earlier.

I was just listening to a speech by Mindvalley co-founder Vishen Lakhiani and he talked about flow which basically means to be happy in the present and to have a vision for the future. Happiness is the journey not the destination, so lets all be happy in the present. Even though we get thrown some large obstacles and tough curve balls we need to strive to achieve fluidity. Imagine a stream or river, often times they travel vast distances. A stream or river is the perfect example of fluidity and flow; they always have a vision or destination they are heading towards and don’t let present obstacles obstruct that. Have you ever seen a river stop and wonder why there was a rock placed dead in the middle of it’s path? No the water just simply diverts and keeps on flowing.

In the end we spend too much energy in the wrong avenues. Everything happens for a reason and that reason is there to serve us and when the time is right the reason will be exposed. However, what we need to consciously concern ourselves with is asking the right present moment questions. Am I choosing to let this hold me hostage or am I choosing to embrace this moment in the journey? I am here now, what do I presently need to do to continue towards my destination?

Strive to be present, bring yourself back to this single moment and embrace it. If you choose this could be the greatest moment of your life.

 

 

 

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The Challenge

I few months ago I came across a quote pasted onto the side of a building that moved me.

As I am feeling a bit boisterous tonight this quote trickled into my head and I thought I would offer up a challenge.

The quote was, and I paraphrase it:

I find TV to be extremely educational, when it is turned on I grab a book and go into another room

I believe there is such a vast amount of knowledge and learning to be had in good books that this quote resonated with me.

Here is my challenge to everyone: I believe North Americans spend WAY too much time in front of the TV. Simply for 1 week record how many hours you spend watching TV. Doesn’t matter what you’re watching just everyday write down the hours you watched and at the end of the week tally it all up.

What you do with the number at the end of the week is completely up to you, but I would encourage you to reflect upon it. Think about whether the time was beneficial. Think about your life, do you have everything you really want in it? Money? Love? Family? Could this time have been used to pursue what is lacking in your life?

There are many ways you can reflect on your use of time. I challenge you, just for curiosities sake, find out how much TV you watch; who knows you may find some extra time to live your hearts desire.

 

 

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Choice

Life is a beautiful endeavor. We are so blessed to be a part of the universes greatness. However, I do occasionally catch myself at a loss for gratitude; especially when things are not favorable. I have gotten into the habit of catching myself and correcting myself, but as a societal whole I feel there is room for improvement.

There is nothing wrong with being grateful for our shortcomings in life, in fact I rather encourage it(It makes things a lot more fun!).

I do often wonder though if many of us are cognizant of the fact that everything we have in life is a direct result of our own choice. It took me a long time to realize and come to terms with this fact.

It is so much easier to make reasons or excuses to describe our lack of. It’s a habit that requires a lot of presence, but taking responsibility for our actions is the first step to achieving marvelous things in life.

Let’s take this for an example: let’s compare life to a gear box in a car. Can we all agree that to get the car moving we must put it into first gear and get the wheels rolling? And that you must physically choose and act to get the car rolling?

Can we compare this to life now? Have you ever noticed that one day when you looked at a calendar 3 years have gone by and nothing has changed? Similar to leaving a car in neutral?

Ever notice how you always end up achieving the same undesired result? Maybe you’re in 5th gear going down the wrong highway. Sometimes in life we need to slow things down(downshift), put the car into reverse, and change directions. The key is to be aware and to notice what you do and don’t want. It can be as simple as changing gears in a car.

Take a moment and reflect. Do you spend more time blaming others/circumstances for your shortcomings? Or do you thank life for it’s lessens and take action to correct?

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Time to quit?

Are you busy?

I bet you have a lot of projects on the go right now. Are they successful?

Have you achieved all the success you originally dreamed of when you started?

Have you ever started another project before you hit that success?

Often we are our own worst enemies. We will create nifty little ways to rob ourselves of great successes. See we convince ourselves that we need to add step a,b,c to get us into position to achieve our desired results. We need to go full steam right thru our wall of difficulty, not scale it hoping to find a little crack we can squeeze thru. Success is not easy, don’t mask it the struggle with other tasks!

I have never been one fond of quitting, but there comes a point when we need to de-commit from certain clutters of life. We need to learn to say “no” to alternatives; how are we going to take advantage of 15 great alternatives/add-ons all stacked on top of each other?

Fear is tricky, it will camouflage a scenario to make us think were taking steps towards our goals by adding more when really we just need to put your heels into the ground and drive forward.

Have you been sabotaging your own success by adding more clutter? It is time to simplify. It is time to de-commit and re-prioritize everything that is not getting you to your end goal.

 

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The Rebound

Habit is such an important part of the human life; we are all creatures of habit.

Have you ever worked really hard at eliminating a bad habit and fell back on it? or have you ever worked really hard to create a good habit, missed a couple days and felt like you’ve lost your grove?

Trust me. You’re not the only one, this happens to people on a daily basis(take this blog for an example, I had a good 3 week run without a post).

How do we go about getting back on track? After having put all this work into something we mustn’t let it go to waste!

Rebounding completely relies on our mindset: we often focus on not doing the task compared to actually doing it. For example, think about the last time you broke your gym routine. How much time was spent dwelling on how you haven’t gone in a while? Or how many times did you say “I am going to get back into the grove tomorrow”?

I want to take you back to the origin of the task; there was a reason why you started the task in the first place. Say going to the gym to lose a couple pounds? Or writing a blog to spread the concept of self awareness? This is our focal point. Regardless of me missing a couple weeks of blogs I am still passionate about spreading and developing self awareness; that has not changed. If you miss a couple weeks at the gym guess what? I bet that 5 pounds didn’t disappear and you still want to lose it.

I truly love the word responsibility. When you break it down it literally means the ability to control your response. Whether or not the habit is broken the situation has not changed; the task is still incomplete. Whether we spend our time focusing on how we were doing so well or we simply focus on completing the task is our choice.

Let’s choose a response that brings us back to accomplishing our reason why, time is precious don’t spend it focusing on anything but the target.

No matter how many times a golfer has hit the ball into the water he is still always focused on the pin.

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