Category: thoughts

Believing in More

For the most part I think we all wish to become the deliberate creators of our own lives.  We truly want to believe that we still have the freedom and capability to shape our own realities.
We all want to believe that we can succeed in whatever our dreams may be. Yet somehow we get stuck. Stunted by our limiting beliefs.
I’m too old.
I’m too young.
I’m not smart.
I’m not pretty.
I’m not handsome.
I’m not thin.
I’m not funny.
I’m not wealthy.
I’m not talented enough.
Beliefs that break our hearts and kill our dreams.
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But let us for a moment dissect what a belief is and what that “enough” might buy us.
Let me know if you agree. A belief is a thought that is backed by your confidence, faith, trust and acceptance – it is an assumed truth for you  and the best explanation that you have based on the evidence you have experienced so far in life.
The word “enough” is an opportunity to grow. Ask yourself, what would it require you to be “enough” of something. What would you need to be, to be enough? What would you need to believe? What would you need to sacrifice?
Take a moment to reflect. Are your beliefs a detriment or a benefit to you? That is a good question to ponder.  While you are at it, be honest about the emotional payoff you get from your beliefs.
How does “I’m too old” get you off the hook from embarrassing yourself?
How does “I’m not talented” keep you from failing before you even begin?
Perhaps believing that you are not athletic gets you off the hook from getting in shape.
Maybe believing you aren’t creative keeps you from the agony and frustration of trying something new and being a beginner at something like painting, drawing or dancing.
No matter how old, young or smart we are, we must experiment with our lives to build new beliefs about ourselves.  Grow baby grow.
In order to transform, one must pull all of these tragic beliefs by the root, weeding the garden of the mind.
Remove the seemingly innocent beliefs of . . .
  • “I can’t tell the truth because I may get judged…” Better to be heard, than care about being judged.
  • “I don’t want to get close to this person lest my heart gets broken…” Let your heart be soft and forgiving, beating and pumping that love juice. Love again. 
  • “I don’t want to ask for what I want because, I might be rejected” Rejection is your projection my darling. 
  • “I can’t trust people because I’ve been betrayed before…” But what if you aren’t this time around? 
  • “I can’t pursue my dreams because I don’t know what I’d do if I fail. I can’t afford the risk.” What is life but a risk?

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You become what you believe you can be. Before you can begin to grow, you must believe that you have what it takes.

Featured Artist

Mai @glitchostrich

 

Shaped By Our Assumptions

Every problem, every dilemma, every dead end we find ourselves facing in life, only appears unsolvable inside a particular frame or point of view. Enlarge your view. Build another frame around what you know, and problems will vanish, while new opportunities appear.

The Art of Possibility by Zander

Appreciate how hopeless it is to escape being shaped by the assumptions that underlie all of life.

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Featured Artist

@chaussetteb

 

Thoughts That Change Everything for The Better

Choosing how we think and understanding the power of each and every one of our thoughts is a game changer. By Madeline Johnson

Choosing how we think and understanding the power of each and every one of our thoughts is a game changer.

The thoughts that pass through your mind are responsible for everything that happens in your life. Your predominant thoughts influence your behavior and attitude and control your actions and reactions. As your thoughts are, so is your life.

What you hold in your mind, you are attracted to in life.

Your mind can’t distinguish between a REAL event and something you actually think about.

The Astonishing Power of Belief

Whatever belief you have in your subconscious mind will become your reality and 96 to 98% of the time you are on autopilot allowing your subconscious mind to make decisions for you.

10 minute watch The Incredible Power of Your Beliefs

Our thoughts create us and we have to be extremely careful about what we are feeding our minds.  Be thoughtful about what you read, watch and learn.

On a physical level, negative thoughts in your mind can release stress hormones like cortisol into your blood which weakens the immune system and inhibits the action of your white blood cells, increases the chances of infection and promotes weight gain.

We have on average 60,000 thoughts a day and most of the time, they are the thoughts we had yesterday. They are thoughts that are dwelling on something bad in the past or something that can potentially happen in the future.

There is absolutely no situation in the entire universe that can cause you to experience anxiety. It is your psychological reaction to the situation that causes your anxiety.

You create your anxiety by the way you think about a situation. You have the power to think differently about everything that happens to you.

 

Featured Artist

Ra.in on Instagram

 

How Language Shapes Your Emotion

The power of the language.  Sometimes a simple switch of a few words to describe what we want in our lives can make all the difference. By Madeline Johnson

We all know that a better system of thinking creates better outcomes in our lives.  Honestly,  if we want more than what we currently have in life, we must change the way we think about everything.

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And we must guard our precious minds from even the subtlest of negative thoughts.

Read 13 Subtle Thoughts That Could Be Signs of High Functioning Anxiety

But how about the power of the language you use?  Sometimes a simple switch of a few words to describe what we want in our lives can make all the difference.

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For example . . .

What you have to do vs what you really want to accomplish?

You want to meet nice friends or do you want to meet interesting, kind and fun friends?

Do you want to travel to new places or plan a wildly adventurous life?

A higher level of thinking + a new vocabulary can lead to a whole, new perspective.

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New words to use that pack a powerful punch

Elysian (Greek) [el-ee-zee-an] (adj.)

Beautiful or creative; divinely inspired; peaceful and perfect.

Querencia (Spanish) [keh-ren-see-ah] (n.)

A place from which one’s strength is drawn, where one feels at home; the place where you are your most authentic self.

Meraki (Greek) [mehr-ah-kee] (v.)

To do something with soul, creativity, or love; to put something of yourself into your work.

Her paintings were full of meraki, and because of it they were some of the most realistically brilliant pieces he had ever seen.

Eloquence is fluent, forcible, elegant or persuasive speaking. It is primarily the power of expressing strong emotions in striking and appropriate language, thereby producing conviction or persuasion. The term is also used for writing in a fluent style

Coruscate (Latin) [core-us-skate] (v.)

To reflect brilliantly; to sparkle.

Like… “Her eyes coruscated with such inner beauty that even the stars couldn’t shine brighter than the heart within her.”

Halcyon – Happy, sunny, calm, care-free.

Imbue – To infuse, instill.

Redolent – Fragrant.

Sumptuous –Lush, luxurious.

I am building a list. What are some of your favorite new words and phrases?

 

 

 

Featured Artist

Marcos Guinoza

 

 

 

Altering Your Attitude of Mind

Very often human beings are  living on autopilot,

reacting automatically to what happens. 

– Betrand Piccard,

Our thoughts are constantly helping us to interpret the world around us, describing what is happening, and trying to make sense of it by helping us interpret events, sights, sounds, smells, feelings.

Our automatic brain attempts to keep us safe like an overprotective parent. Scientists have proven that our brains react more strongly to bad events than good.   There is a greater surge in electrical activity. Thus, our attitudes are more heavily influenced by disaster and doom than good news.

The Purpose of Our Negativity Bias

Our capacity to weigh negative input so heavily most likely evolved for a good reason—to keep us out of harm’s way. From the dawn of human history, our very survival depended on our skill at dodging danger. The brain developed systems that would make it unavoidable for us not to notice danger and thus, hopefully, respond to it. Read the full article on Psychology Today.

The automatic brain responds only to danger, threat or vulnerability, but these thoughts are also great teachers. When we question them, we can become more intelligent about why we do the things we do.

Believing in negative thoughts is the single greatest obstruction to your success.  

Charles F. Glassman, author of Brain Drain

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Questioning Our Automatic Negative Thoughts

Recognize when you are confusing thoughts with fact.  For example, I woke up this morning and I looked at my schedule and thought, I will never finish everything I have to do today. Oh the dreadful feeling of defeat before dawn. This is not something new for me. This fear-based thought always makes me feel frustrated, unsettled and unsuccessful before I even began the day. It overwhelms me, but is it true?

Now, I have no evidence that I won’t have a productive day. This is not a fact.  The challenge for me is to ask myself why I think I won’t finish everything I have to do today.

Perhaps it is because I have over scheduled myself. If I look at this fearful thought as a tool to help me, I realize I have the opportunity to prioritize my list and set up myself up for success by removing unnecessary tasks until tomorrow, or the next day.

I can also ask that negative thought if I have the right tools to have a productive day.  I can question the fear of not having a productive day, with “What will it take me to have a productive one?”

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Questioning our automatic thoughts can free us from fear and help us alter our attitudes for more positive outcomes in our lives.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” 

– Viktor Frankl

Read Man’s Search for Meaning

Featured Artist

Leonora Carrington Her approach is deemed visionary and strongly personal, while her symbolism is considered entirely new and authentic. The relationship between Carrington’s writing and her paintings is another topic that has been popular among many art critics and scholars. The same goes for an important role in feminism in the new analysis of Carrington’s art. The scholars claim that Carrington’s highly personal visual expression which combines folklore and magic led the way aspiring female artists who wanted to explore new ways of addressing and portraying female identity.

Our Greatest Weapon Against Self-Doubt

How to challenge our negative self talk and align our desires with our subconscious beliefs.
by Madeline Johnson

Whether you succeed or not begins with what you believe to be true and sometimes what we believe to be true about ourselves just isn’t so.

You can look at it this way.  Whatever you hold in your mind (whatever you think about constantly) will tend to happen in your life.

If you continue to believe and act as you always have, you will get precisely what you’ve always gotten.

If you don’t like where you are at in life, then it’s time for a change in your thinking.

It’s simple and it can be easy, if you believe you can do it. You can change your thinking for better results in your life.

Our thinking leads to our behavior and there are ways we can behave to make situations worse and there our ways we can behave to make things better. 

Accurate & Actionable Thinking

All action starts with a thought and when your thoughts are a mixed bag of desire and fear you will create mediocre results at best. You will start that project but quit. You will start to lose a bit of weight and then binge. You won’t succeed at the new goal you have started.

It’s not like you aren’t trying, so it’s finally time to get to the root cause of your lack of progress. It starts with establishing what you know and what you don’t know about yourself. Discovering what is true about you.

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It’s finally time to remove your self-doubt, those limiting beliefs about yourself that are ingrained in your subconscious. I am talking about unpacking the stale and old beliefs that are stored in your subconscious mind. These deep-rooted beliefs are what really drive us to behave the way we behave and are the beliefs that get in the way of our success.

97% of our thoughts are unconscious and autonomic – similar to how our heart beats and our eyes blink. Read more about shifting paradigms *changing your beliefs by Dr. Catherine Collautt

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You simply can’t hold a positive intention in your head and mix it with self-doubt or fear.

Your desires and your belief must be the same.

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Our thoughts and subconscious beliefs must be on the same page or we will self-sabotage our success.

I truly believe you can have anything you want in life,

when you give up the belief that you can’t have it.

Note: There is a difference between believing you can have something and thinking you deserve it.  The key to success is starting with the belief and then working really, really hard at achieving what you want. It has nothing to do with thinking you deserve something.

The Way You Think When You Support Your Limiting Beliefs

When we are thinking from emotion (not a good idea), we must become aware of our cognitive distortions. Cognitive distortions are simply ways that our mind convinces us of something that isn’t really true. Here is a description of 15 of the most popular ways in which we use them to reinforce negative thinking or emotions.

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The greatest weapon against self-doubt and fear is our ability to choose one thought over another.

 

Featured Artwork

Rob Shields

 

Bad Choices & More Thoughtful People

Thoughtful people are self-aware, take care of their mental and physical needs and are engaged in the present moment. Madeline Johnson

Decisions. We have so many to make every day. Although unscientifically proven, there seems to be a general consensus that we make about 35,000 decisions a day on average.

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Decisions vs Choices

According to Cornelia Schepis, there is a distinction between decision and choice. Every time you decide you’re literally killing your possibility to be self expressed. You’re putting up with something and there’s lack of freedom and power right there. When you choose you are freely and powerfully creating space for self expression and possibilities. This is a distinction that most of human beings unfortunately isn’t aware of. So don’t feel bad. I’m glad you brought this question up. Said that, we live in a society and often we are required to make decisions and not choices. I’d say as long as you know the distinction and you’re aware of which you’re choosing, it’s “ok”.

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Guided By Our Intuition

As we navigate our lives, we normally allow ourselves to be guided by impressions and feelings, and the confidence we have in our intuitive beliefs and preferences is usually justified. But not always. We are even confidant when we are wrong and an objective observer is more likely to detect our errors than we are.

From Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

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What Thoughtful People Do

Thoughtful people are self-aware, take care of their mental and physical needs and are engaged in the present moment. They are observant to the needs of those around them and are as kind and considerate as possible.

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They learn from the past, prepare for the future and act in the present moment.

They don’t walk away from arguments. They see other thoughts and ideas as a challenge to think bigger.

Incredibly curious about whatever they are studying. They ask the best questions.  They don’t settle for what they know. They understand that “If you don’t seek, you don’t know.”

They decide that everything that happens to them is feedback, lessons to be learned. Good or bad, they take in the teaching and move forward stronger.

They have taken the time to decide what is important, what really matters in their life. Relationships, good work, enjoying the ordinary. They know how and with whom to spend their time.

Thoughtful people build from what they have in the moment. They make best use of their current situation and work with what they’ve got.

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They know what they can control and what they can’t but they also understand that they have choices. They exert self-control. After deliberation and consideration, they make thoughtful choices.

They review all possibilities and focus on possible best outcomes, knowing full well, that the only thing constant in life is change.

Read: This is How High Achievers Make Smart Decisions

A Case For Being More Thoughtful 

Your (intuitive) brain is lazy and causes you to make intellectual errors.

Take the test –

A baseball bat and a ball cost $1.10. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?

I’ll give you a second.

…

Got it?

If your instant and initial answer is $0.10, I’m sorry to tell you that system 1 just tricked you.

Do the math again.

And?

Once you spent a minute or two actually thinking about it, you’ll see that the ball must cost $0.05. Then, if the bat costs $1 more, it comes out to $1.05, which, combined, gives you $1.10.

Another way to understand this –

Although $1.00 + $0.10 does equal $1.10,  if you take $1.00 – $0.10 you get $0.90, but the problem requires that the bat costs $1 more than the ball.

So, the ball must cost $0.05, and the bat must cost $1.05 since $1.05 + $0.05 = $1.10

Fascinating, right? What happened here?

Sometimes your brain perceives problems as simpler as they actually are.

Why does your brain do this?  The law of least effort states that your brain uses the minimum amount of energy for each task it can get away with.

Read even more: 17 Ways To Tell The Difference Between Intruding Thoughts And Intuitive Ones

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Featured Art

May Ray

André Breton once described Man Ray as a ‘pre-Surrealist’, something which accurately describes the artist’s natural affinity for the style. Even before the movement had coalesced, in the mid 1920s, his work, influenced by Marcel Duchamp, had Surrealist undertones, and he would continue to draw on the movement’s ideas throughout his life. His work has ultimately been very important in popularizing Surrealism.

 

 

 

 

Shifting Your Focus & Redirecting Your Energy

What to do when you feel like your life doesn’t align with your dreams. by Madeline Johnson

Everything is Energy.

 

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Your thoughts are energy

and everything we create begins with thinking first.

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Negative thoughts = negative energy
Negative thoughts lead to anxious days. Sometimes miserable ones at that.
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Energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can only be changed from one form to another.

– Albert Einstein
Fresh New Vibes
Your ‘vibration’ is a way of describing your overall state of being. Everything in the universe is made up of energy vibrating at different frequencies. Even things that look solid are made up of vibrational energy fields at the quantum level. This includes you.”
Read Raise Your Vibration here.
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What to do when you aren’t doing what you really want to be doing, but you must.
When you’re taking that job to pay the rent.
When you’re just way to comfortable with your significant other.
When you feel like you just don’t have any real friends.
When you’re feeling like a sell out.
When you’re not following your passion.
Or pursuing your purpose.
When you feel like a fake.
An imposter.
When you feel ugly on the inside, and maybe on the out.
When you feel like your life doesn’t align with your dreams.
You must redirect your energy. . . reconfigure that negative thinking.
You must change your mind.
Shift Your focus.
Yet still respect the rules.
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Realize you may be too close to see your reality.
Recognize that you are ruminating again. (but make sure you’re not problem-solving, which is a good thing).
Take charge of your thoughts, your life again.
Anxious rumination can pull us in and take on a life of its own, providing a superstitious feeling of security and control.
To get unstuck and outside of our heads, we can activate our right (nonverbal) brain by doing a simple physical activity such as a walk (without ruminating), or jogging in place for a minute or two. Or we can soothe ourselves, for example, by focusing on our breathing in a meditative way, drawing or painting, or listening to music. In this way, we can contain anxiety and unnecessary torment, as well as safeguard our psychological resources for genuine problem-solving, creative thought, relationships, and other challenges that pay off.
Allow yourself to rest first. Take a moment to pause.
Now begin to question and remove every thought that is not serving you well.
Physically change your environment. Put down the phone, close the laptop,
get the hell off of Instagram. Please.
Take a walk. Go for a bike ride. Stop and change your location.
Just move.
Take another moment to protect your energy. . .
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Understand that negative, anxious thinking is positive energy turned bad, spent complaining, fretting, crying, worrying, comparing and hating yourself.
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You must struggle to redirect it. You channel it. You take that pain and anguish and put it into something new. Let it out. Use that energy to make something new. Something that looks a little more like what you want.
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You take that energy and you journal a bit, go for a run or a walk, blast your favorite music. Make your bed. Clean the kitchen. You break out the water colors, turn to the fresh page, press open the notebook. You click on a new project on adobe. You put on your yoga leggings and grab your mat.  You walk to the market and pick up a wickedly healthy salad.
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Featured Art
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Seeking The Companionship of The Conversations We Have with Ourselves & Overdosing on Overthinking

Isn’t it peculiar when you find yourself waking up from living in a moment that doesn’t even exist yet? 

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An important note about why we overthink things.  Why we try to forecast the future, figure out what is going to happen next and play out the scenarios before they even happen.

We find comfort there.  It gives us power. It can be a good thing.

We find companionship within the constant conversation we have with ourselves. 

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The addicting mind chatter becomes even more distracting when we have a challenge we can’t solve or when we feel all alone. We wander behind enemy lines (inside our perturbed minds) and begin to overthink it all.

The path to more peace, is to sit with how things really are and examine all the ways you chase for comfort when feeling vulnerable, lonely, frightened and anxious.  We become addicts to unnecessary activity and addicted to the discursive thoughts in our mind. 

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These addictions we have come in all types of forms, some more healthy than others. We become addicted to work, exercise, food, adventure, meditation, yoga, anything to remove us (read: escape) from the painful truth of reality.

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Watch: How to Use Drugs by Alain de Bottom.

A drug can be anything that increases an expanded state of consciousness (that is the state or quality of awareness) in which the pain of immediate troubles is lessoned by euphoric recognition of nature and the cosmos.

 

 

Better Things to Ponder, Metacognition & The Story Telling Mind

I agree with Teal Swan, the reality is that for the most part people are not emotionally safe to be in relationship with. That includes me right now. For the moment, I should wear a warning sign for although I may be smiling on the outside, on the inside, I am a grieving ball of swirling pain and confusion. WARNING: Imminent Danger. Wounded. Hold Space. Step Back. Let Be.

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I wonder how many other people are walking around like this today.

hellRight now, I have placed myself in stealth healing mode. I am recalibrating, retreating and reflecting and yes, I want limited contact with the outside world.

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We all have our painful struggles. I just really want to learn, grow and take responsibility for my part. To grow stronger while strengthening my very own locus of control. This will enable me to go forward in life choosing people, places and things that are better for me. Better decisions come from a stronger mind. Forgive and let go.

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The Deep Dive

On Suffering. To Be a Warrior Against What Is.

 

I am a huge believer in disrupting and innovating to repair what doesn’t work in society, especially when it comes to the use of technology. As for matters of the heart, there is a different type of disruption that must start with acceptance and approval of whatever situation you are in right now. That’s right. Find the good in the bad. The opportunity in the obstacle.

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Spending all of our mental energy bargaining with the universe for what should be, how it could be, when the fact is, sometimes you have to give up the resistance to what is.

This is the problem I have with trying to pray away the pain. Praying is beautiful, but it doesn’t change what is. True change begins when we accept what is and when we are ready, we take action in a new direction.

Note to self: you can’t and don’t control everything.  When we suffer, we spend all of our energy fighting what has happened. Wondering how we could have prevented it from happening. The healing begins when you realize you cannot change the outcome of what has already happened. You don’t have to like what is occuring right now, but when you can find the reasons why it might actually be good for you you begin to accept and realize that the remedy has begun. From Teal Swan.

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Better Things To Ponder

A better life begins with better thoughts. If you can open up to realize that your thoughts may actually be crappy ones, then you can begin to think more clearly. Yeah that’s right, from crappy to clear.

From “101 things more worth thinking about than whatever is consuming you right now.  “From Essays That Will Change the Way You Think  book by Brianna Wiest.

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So, if you don’t like where you are in life, stopping complaining and start creating.

The way it will feel to have the life you want. The place you’ll live, the clothes you will wear, what you will buy at the supermarket, how much money you will save, what work you’ll most be proud to have done. What you’ll do with your weekends, what color your sheets will be, what you’ll take photos of.

A Magical Medicine Bag

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Over the past few weeks, in an attempt to heal myself,  I thought about the idea of a Medicine Bag. I have made one myself, that I have been carrying around and using each morning to reflect on the parts of me that need healing.

A Medicine Bag was a special, sacred container for various objects, or amulets, of supernatural power used, or provided by, a MedicineMan or Shaman, to carry ‘medicine‘, or symbols, of animal spirits good luck, protection and strength in battle. The Medicine Bag contains both symbolic and ritual items.

Now, if I had a magical medicine bag, it might contain . . .

  • A pair of glasses to see the world and all of humanity with radical loving kindness.
  • Soft, beautiful, expanding wings to strap on your shoulders. Magically, they allow you to soar above this world for a new perspective, to glide and to guide.
  • Detoxing tea to help remove the sticky, stuck pain cells of the body. The bitter cells that hold anger and resentment. Those cells that may grow up to become cancer, should they not be softened and removed, eliminated from the body. Drink a small cup a day to keep the crazy rage and illness away.
  • A softening salve for the heart. When applied, a hardened heart becomes mysteriously able to renew itself. This curative balm begins to mend the heart, putting back all the pieces so it may pump and flow again, while helping the love juice of life flow to every healthy cell in the body.
  • A wondrous cape of self confidence that makes one feel resilient, competent, relevant and real. Ready to take on the world with love and enthusiasm. When worn, you know you cannot and will not fail.
  • The compass to help you find your true north.
  • A pill to help you process past issues. Not a numbing pill, but an enlightening pill.
  • The death clock, a countdown tool to remind you that your days are numbered here on this earth with a daily alarm to help you remember to live each day to it’s fullest, doing all the good you can do. Touching everyone that comes your way with heartfelt love and acceptance.
  • A super powerful magnet to attract the people into your life who will play and work and love and live with you on this journey. Your like-minded citizens of the world. Your tribe.
  • A prescription of forgiveness serum to help heal past relationships, to let go of old pain and to open your mind and heart to the healing of this mystical moment.
  • Golden keys to unlock yourself out of imprisoning stories, stories that make you smaller and hurtful.
  • Some type of delicious crystalized candy to expand your mind with the metacognition for awakened awareness of what is truly important.

Metacognition – awareness and understanding of one’s own thought process.

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Healing The Stories that Imprison Our Heart

Our suffering arises from fear-based stories that are often outside our awareness. These include stories of our deficiency or importance, of being a victim, of being unseen or unloved, of facing failure or rejection. This is true collectively too. We have shared stories of bad “others” that fuel wars, shared stories of the value of continued growth in consumption and production that destroy our earth, shared stories of our human right to enslave and violate other animals. We have the capacity to bring the stories that separate and imprison us into the light of awareness, and with great compassion, loosen their grip. These two talks look at the ways fear-based stories create suffering, and how awakening from them reveals the freedom of our true, and universal, belonging.  A meditation from Tara Brach.

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Prepared & Active

“Let Fate find us prepared and active. Here is the great soul – the one who surrenders to Fate. The opposite is the weak and desperate one, who struggles with and has a poor regard for the order of the world and seeks to correct the faults of the gods, rather than their own.” Seneca, Moral Letters 107.12

Whatever happens today, let it find us prepared and active: ready for problems, ready for difficulties, ready for people to behave in disappointing or confusing ways, ready to accept and make it work for us. Let’s not wish we could turn back time or remake the universe according to our preference. Not when it would be far better and far easier to remake ourselves.   – The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday

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