Do what you can to make things better. Find out how much good you can do in the world. By Madeline Johnson
Not my words, but definitely a great notion and something I believe is worth asking yourself.
This idea, that we have the capability to make things better with what we have is inspired by professor and clinical psychologist Jordan B. Peterson author of 12 Rules for Life.
His wisest advice –
Learn what you need to learn to become wise and work for the betterment of being.
Do what you can to make things better. Find out how much good you can do in the world.
Do it in a forthright, courageous, noble, eyes-wide open, articulate and embodied manner.
How to bake better into your every day beingness.
Not sure where to begin? I like what Brianna Wiest recommends. . .
Borda D. Adrian is a surreal painter and lives in Reghin, Romania. He is an inner traveler, exploring the mysterious and extremely complex subconscious world. In his real life as well as in his art, I don’t care about conventions and the taboos, there are no sacred memes that cannot be touched. His paintings are deep meditations full of symbols about life and our most intimate tendencies and reactions…not necessarily to create something most people like, but to open a window to haunting images impossible to forget.
Slow down and let your breath anchor you into this moment, where you remain at peace and with the pace of this universe. By Madeline Johnson
Today is the day I let go. I let go and for damn good reason. I let go of attaching myself to what I think I need and want. This is true freedom.
I have no control over when my last breath will be, so if I cannot control something as essential as my breath, which keeps me alive, who is to say I can control anything else.
The only thing between me and death is my breath. I don’t want to catch my breath, I want to slow it down and let it anchor me into this moment, where I remain at peace and with the pace of this universe.
The Tao Te Ching is a series of meditations on the mysterious nature of the Tao–the Way, the guiding light, the very source of all existence. According to Lao Tzu (a name meaning “the old master”), the Tao is found where we would least expect it–not in the strong but in the weak; not in speech but in silence; not in doing but in “not-doing.”
“Once I made it through the darkest and most difficult parts of my personal adventure, I came to realize that this magic key wasn’t meant just for me – it could be a gift to others as well. I could use my pen to throw the doors wide open and allow the truths that had so profoundly improved my life to find their way to others who are stepping upon the path that I walked myself.”
Miles Johnston was born in the UK in 1993. He spent the first few years of his early childhood living in Brunei, Borneo, something that he is sure had a major effect on him. The totally different environment gave him the intuition early on that there is no true ‘normal’.
Learning to love and respect yourself isn’t something that you decide to do one day. It’s a daily practice. By Madeline Johnson
Learning to love and respect yourself isn’t something that you decide to do one day. It’s a daily practice. Self-acceptance requires patience and practice and maybe even managing those great expectations you have for yourself while holding onto your standards.
Expectations can sometimes get in the way of lessons and joy found in unexpected experiences.
-George Leonard, Poet/Philosopher and the granddaddy of the consciousness movement.
An argument for loving and accepting yourself . . .
When we refuse to accept ourselves as we are, then we return to the constant need for numbing and distraction. And we will similarly be unable to accept others the way they are, so we will look for ways to manipulate them, change them, or convince them to be a person they are not. Our relationships will become transactional, conditional, and ultimately toxic and fail.
Leif is an artist and Creative Director. His work explores themes of connectedness, the relevance of nature and the psychedelic experience. By utilizing these subjects he attempts to inspire the viewer into a realignment with themselves and their surroundings.
“If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path. – Joseph Campbell
Absolute freedom. A life devoted to creative self-expression.
A life that is fundamentally free is one that is free of certainty. Purpose, passion, goals. . .they do not matter. The only guarantee of success is that every outcome is uncertain. Their is no guarantee. Our purpose is not to be found or “discovered”. Our essence is to be expressed or we may fall into arrested expansion.
To become completely comfortable with uncertainty is total freedom.
To live a life that is full of curiosity, enthusiasm and wonder.
To be free to live open to every situation at one time that we imagined would be difficult or a conflict.
To express the creative capacity of our essence.
This is how our lives become a work of art.
To live in direct contact with the perpetual, dynamic uncertainty that is implicit in the power of life itself. To appreciate the mystery of life.
This is equal to living in the heart of intimate freedom.
When we simply are, we are free.
There is no purpose to be found. Just the creative expression of life itself.
As you stroll along, if you’re awake enough, you will be led by your curiosity and excitement.
The granddaddy of the consciousness movement, George Leonard was a co-founder of the Aikido of Tamalpais dojo in Corte Madera, California. He also developed the Leonard Energy Training (LET) practice for centering the mind, body, and spirit.
Changing your thoughts to create your future by Madeline Johnson with Dr. Joe Dispenza
According to Dr. Joe Dispenza in this lecture, 95% of who we are by the time we are 35 is a memorized set of behaviors, a pattern of emotional reactions, continual unconscious habits, hardwired attitudes, rigid beliefs and perceptions.
We become very predictable people.
If we decide that perhaps we want something better, perhaps change in our lifes, we must start with our thoughts.
If you agree and believe that the way you think has some effect on you life, than changing the way you think is the only real solution for transformation.
In order to become better versions of who we are for a better life, we must change our personalities.
How Our Personalities Are Formed
We have around 60,000 to 70,000 thoughts per day. That’s an average of 2500 – 3,300 thoughts per hour. Out of those 60-70 thousand thoughts that you think, 90% of those thoughts are the same thoughts as the day before.
If you believe (like I do) that your thoughts are some how connected to your life, then the same thoughts always lead to the same choices, which eventually lead to the same outcomes.
Thoughts for Change
Since the same choices always lead to the same behaviors, the same behaviors create the same experiences.
The same experiences produce the same emotions.
Those very same emotions drive those very same thoughts.
A vicious circle and a predictable life.
Your thoughts, fueled by emotions effect your entire life, including your biology, your neurocircuitry, your neurochemistry, your neurohormones, and even your genetic expression. It is all equal to how you think, how you act and how you feel.
How you think, how you act and how you feel is called your personality and your personality creates your personalreality.
How to be authentic and original. Thoughts from Madeline Johnson, writer about human development.
E. E. Cummings wrote, “The greatest battle we face as human beings is the battle to protect our true selves from the self the world wants us to become.”
People just put facades out there. They even admit that one facade is a little more real than the other. You go to work and get lost in your professional facade, but then you say. “I’m going home to be with my family and friends where I can just be myself.” So your work facade drops into the background, and your relaxed social facade comes forward. But what about you, the one who is holding the facade together? Nobody gets near that one. That’s just too scary. That one is too far back there to deal with.
Oh, the armor we put on every morning becomes heavier to bear, year-after-year. Tara Brach calls it our “spacesuit strategy“, we slip it on every day as we head out into the world to attract attention, admiration, and appreciation. No wonder why we are so mentally exhausted, always trying to be something we are not for temporary shots of counterfeit recognition.
Emotional Masks
These emotional masks, the masks we hide behind because of fear. For example, if we are insecure, we might hide behind the mask of name-dropping. If we are unsure of our power, we can hide behind mask of being a bully. If we don’t think the world loves us, we can hide behind mask of anger. We mask the debt we’ve incurred to pay for lifestyles we can’t afford; we pretend things are fine at work, when our jobs are on the line; we pretend things are okay in our marriages when there is distance.
It starts with just noticing when you are not being you. When you are saying things and doing things just to get attention or acknowledgment. Just think about how nice you are to people when they behave in accordance with your expectations.
How to follow your intuition by becoming more mindful.
Three things I am working on right now.
Soul Singing
Question: What does my soul say today?
My soul doesn’t speak in thoughts. No, not at all. These thoughts that clutter my mind are just residual pain left over from the things I haven’t let go of yet. Thoughts of conflicts yet resolved.
My soul speaks in feelings, emotions, images, sounds, clues.
My soul speaks to me when I feel deep sadness, frustration, anger, contentment and happiness.
I can feel, see, taste, touch and listen to my soul when my mind is silent.
That’s why I meditate.
Weeding my mind garden so there is more room for a soul orchestra.
Good feelings can’t grow from grudges. Pure thoughts don’t come from residual pain.
These are the feelings from stories feared.
Letting these thoughts drift on by, help me weed my mind garden and clear the soil for a more softer, gentler and more compassionate state of being.
Recovering from the violent ways in which we communicate.
Three very memorable lessons from my morning (reading and mediation) ritual today.
Live Like This
Act, speak, write and create as if it were your very last day. Your last moment here. Create from the heart as if you are expressing yourself for the last time. Like this is it. Make it all matter.
Stay open to the impermanence of life. To all of the change that is happening around you. To the fact that everything is constantly evolving.
Discipline yourself to wake up out of the trance-like “thought” and come into your senses, awake and aware of this moment right now. Stay in touch with your aliveness. Open up to the space between your thoughts. Inhabit the pause, the silence between your monkey mind chatter. Learn to tolerate the groundlessness & uncertainty of life. Let it all happen, even in times of maddening uncertainty.
Stay Amazed and Astonished
Life is nothing short of a miracle. This is something to remember when you are busy managing the mundane. Never forget the miracle of being alive right now.
I am 1,000 % absofuckinglutely certain that I should be recognized in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the biggest idiot on the planet for repeating the same damn mistakes over and over again for most of my adult life. Life on repeat can be brutal.
Why am I so susceptible to making the same mistakes over and over again? Whether it’s ruining a diet with three glasses of wine, running credit card debt on a bunch of useless stuff I never needed in the first place, trusting a friend who was way less than honest or sacking up with an ex. What possesses me/us to continue to do things that get in the way of what we truly want? Is it fear of the unknown? Fear of what life would be if we didn’t do the things we did on repeat? Maybe. Perhaps it’s a matter of finding the holes. The holes we keep falling into. The mind-numbing, soothing and relaxing way our brain feels after a glass or two or three of wine. Or the familiar, comfortable and easy way it feels to slip right back into the arms of the one you once loved. I need to look at the benefits of my biggest mistakes.
When we do something right, a pathway is created in our brain. Unfortunately, a pathway is also created when we something wrong. We basically build habits this way, both good and bad. So the reason we keep making the same mistakes is that we slip by default back into existing neural pathways.
Achieving Ego Free States
Sometimes I feel like I need a complete rewiring of the brain.
Research into psychedelics, shut down for decades, is now yielding exciting results.
It seems that individuals under “treatment” transcend their primary identification with their bodies and experience ego-free states . . . and return with a new perspective and profound acceptance. Read more in The New Yorker: The Trip Treatment
Natural Reactions
If you have ever been accused of “overreacting” and you think something is wrong with you because someone told you so, then this 10-minute watch is critical for your growth. Bottom line: Reactions are NATURAL. Overreacting is a warning sign that you have been hurt badly. You have to HEAL that, not shame it away.
When Our Minds Run in Circles
Reading, learning and practicing how to meditate to calm my mind, I am focusing on what Buddhists call “maitri”
Maitri – practicing loving kindness and awareness to all your thoughts. Read: When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron. The purpose of meditation is not to find your bliss, but to befriend and let go of all thoughts – the good, the bad and the ugly. To accept them all with loving-kindness, with maitri.
The Benefits of Being Socially Selective
I just don’t have the bandwidth, headspace or patience for anyone right now. That is quite alright in my book. Sometimes we need a little solitude to sort things out. I just wish more people were fluid in silence.
Comment below if you agree and have a great Monday.
Distraction is the main problem for us all – what the Buddha called the monkey mind. We need to tame this little monkey mind.Tenzin Palmo
As entertaining as it can be, please don’t feed the monkey mind.
When we are unaware that we are unaware.
Then we rush and ramble through the day, doing the “important” and the urgent, going after the goals, just killing it, aren’t we though?
Both numb and dumb to the fierce and wild beauty of the present moment.
Asleep at the wheel.
Not taking notice of our surroundings, the people we are with and even our own presence. Too busy snapping instead of savoring.
Oh to be mindless, as we let the monkeys swing from vine to vine through our head. Pulling us from thought-to-thought with our every emotion. The seedlings for anxiety and panic.
So disconnected with life smack in front of us – to notice the simple and ordinary joy of the day or the pain and suffering of our brother nearby.
And those seemingly little blessings that are happening every moment for our benefit? Wait for it.
Your mind just can’t be here, there and everywhere, yet this is how we go.
To be painfully and gratefully aware and awake with appreciation. This is how we grow.
Inspired by my mother’s doctor who removed her cataracts today. Cataracts are a clouding of the eye’s natural lens, which lies behind the iris and the pupil. Cataracts are the most common cause of vision loss in people over age 40 and is the principal cause of blindness in the world.
Overtime, like many people, mom got use to seeing the world in a blurry, shadow-like haze. In faded color instead of technicolor. It happened gradually over time. Let us not get use to going blind to the beauty of this moment.
