Envying others

… makes sure you NEVER get what they have.

People are only jealous and envious of others when they themselves are not living up to their OWN potential.

Instead of being inspired and driven to achieve what others have, there is a tendency to become resentful that we do not yet have it in our hands at that moment. The result is that we generate a high degree of low vibrational energy (resentment, jealousy and envy) which creates a wall and separates us from ever achieving it. That wall of negativity puts you on lock down so you are unable to attract anything positive into your life. It keeps you from your own happiness.

Envy and jealousy are a cop out. You can have whatever you want in life. Everything is available to you if you open up to source and allow it to come to you. Nobody gets anything that you cannot have. It’s up to you to set out to get it.

You are not being punished. Nothing is being witheld from you. If you desire it in your life, get up and do something about it. Make change in your life so you can bring about the opportunities or the materiality that you so desire.

Life is about choices – everyday. Where you put your energy determines your next experience. Are you going to give your energy over to other people whom you are jealous/envious of OR are you going to allow yourself to use them as inspiration to bring about everything that your heart desires?

The choice is always yours. Blowing out other people’s candles will never make yours burn brighter. Wish them well and allow them to insipre you to make the change necessary to make your own dreams come true. Life is too short to sit on the sidelines and jealously mock the winning team; get out there and make sure you score your own goals.

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Who You Are

… is good enough.

In fact, it is better than good enough. It’s awesome.

At an early age we are trained in our society that we have to conform to a certain standard for social acceptance and respect in our communities. We mistakenly believe we have to attend the “right schools,” hold the “right jobs,” live in the “right type of home” in the “right neighborhood” and be part of the “right social group,” etc…

Where has all this “righteousness” gotten us? Devoid of any individuality, that’s for sure. Conformity is never the answer. It is better to stand apart from the crowd and rest in the knowledge that who you are is ALWAYS better than the sum of the conformists combined.

When we sell ourselves out for acceptance into a group, we lose ourselves. By conforming to another’s standard, you never become YOU. Conformity depletes your power and renders you “just another lemming in a sea of lemmings.” But when you rise above conformity and focus on your own individuality, you soar higher than any lemming partner.

It doesn’t matter what others think of you. It ONLY matters what you think of you. You are not responsible for other people’s lives, you are only responsible for your own. If you are caught up living a life that isn’t your own but that you think looks good, you will forever be caught in a sea of monotony and never find your true direction. Finding who you are means breaking all the rules and redefining them on your own terms. Bring the color back to your life, empower yourself to make your own choices. If you stand as an individual with integrity, purpose and kindness, people will naturally be drawn to you.

But even if others do not follow you, they will always respect you for being an individual. It is much harder but more gratifying to walk the path less traveled. Think about it… it is easier to join a group and blindly follow their definition of success then it is to put it out there yourself and strive for something higher.

Who you are is good enough. It always was. Don’t trade it in for some ideal of acceptance. That is never the way to grow higher in life, it’s the way to keep yourself locked in mediocrity.

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People With Big Egos

… take up MORE space.

They just do. It doesn’t mean that they are better than anyone else, it’s just that they take up MORE space.

People with smaller egos need to occupy the same space as the bigger egos. Herein is the issue. Smaller ego types tend to get pushed out of the room as they have not yet learned how to hold their ground with the big ego.

Either way, smaller egos are generally two types – either extremely accomplished yet humble evolved beings OR they are individuals who do not yet believe in themselves and so they allow the big egos to push them out of the room.

Small egos can become resentful, angry and bitter towards the big egos who generally do not even realize the smaller egos are in the same room with them. The small egos feel as if they are being overlooked, marginalized and pushed out of the room. This is only so because the small ego is ALLOWING IT.

In life, both egos have to co-exist in the same room. Big egos take up more space so it is up to the small ego to learn to hold its ground. The small ego does not have to compete with the big ego, it just has allow itself to be who it is and believe in itself and STAND UP FOR ITSELF and carve out that space that it needs to do its life’s work.

Nothing comes out of allowing a big ego to push you out the door. As a small ego, you lose and the big ego has more room to puff itself up and feel good about itself. There is no competition here. It doesn’t matter how “small” you are, it matters how well you can hold your space in the presence of a big ego. You do not have to be a big ego to hold space with a big ego, you just have to hold the space YOU NEED and never allow it to be compromised. Don’t spend your time resenting a big ego, recognize that there is great strength and beauty in small packages. As long as the package is strong in itself, it will always give the big package a run for its money.

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People Who Criticize

… are usually the ones who have the most work to do.

Everyone has issues. EVERYONE.

Conscious people are the ones who KNOW what their issues are and do not blame others for their own shortcomings.  But not everyone is conscious. Not everyone owns up to their inadequacies.

One of the major life lessons a person can have is known as “self-perfection”. Individuals with this life lesson are here to do serious work on themselves – to “perfect themselves” so to say. But all too often, those with this life lesson may become somewhat misguided and as a result demand perfection of everyone around them instead of themselves. It is easier for them to find fault in you then it is for them to turn the mirror on themselves.

Those who continually find fault in others are generally those who have the most work to do on themselves and they are conveniently avoiding looking at their own behavior.

Do your work. Know what your issues are and give the rest back. Don’t own what is not yours. If you take it on, you will start to embody it in no time. When your critics start to judge you, you should be able to detach from their commentary with a sense of ease. Recognize that the person you are dealing with is having issues doing their own work. Yours is not to save them or fix them. Yours is to not own their criticisms. Yours is to turn the mirror back on them and walk away with your head up high.

Owning “what is yours” empowers you, it holds you responsible and accountable for your life. It makes you stronger and wiser and brings great rewards to the table for you.

Those who prefer holding others accountable are not accepting responsibility for their life. They are the ones who remain lost – for without blame they have no sense of recourse. For sure, they remain stuck by their own hand.

Take control back of your life. Own what is yours and turn the mirror back on those who just cannot see.

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Accepting Crumbs

… will never get you the full loaf of bread.

Accepting less than you deserve will only succeed in drawing less than satisfying situations into your life over and over again. In other words, if you make it a habit of accepting crumbs from lovers, bosses, family members or friends, then crumbs is what you will get. End of story.

When you exhibit a level of contentedness with those crumbs, you set a precedent and define a boundary of “being ok with getting less than you deserve”. This sends out the signal that you do not need or require more to be happy. You can no longer blame your significant other or boss, etc… for them not treating you better. In essence you have told them it is not necessary to give you more. Don’t sit around and wait and hope for someone to give you what you want. It will never happen. Decide that you will not spend one more hour wanting for what you need, be direct and tell them exactly what you want. If you do, you have half a chance of actually getting it.

One thing is for sure, if there is something that you need or want in life, articulate it and do not accept those crumbs. Crumbs never satisfy your hunger. They leave you frustrated, obsessive and hungry for more. After awhile of only getting crumbs, you begin to get resentful and angry. But whose fault is it? You do not get what you do not ask for.

Throw out those crumbs and demand a full loaf of bread, if not the entire bakery. We cannot sustain ourselves on crumbs alone. There is a whole bakery out there with your name on it. Stop the hunger and start satiating yourself with what you truly deserve.

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Let There Be Peace On Earth

… and let it begin with me.

What can we learn from the Newtown, CT tragedy? EVERYTHING.

Do you want to see peace in the world? Start with creating peace within yourself. This tragedy was a wake-up call for all of us to create more love in a place where love seems to be hiding these days.

We need to ask ourselves where have we gone wrong? How much hate is in our world today that we are killing innocent 6 year old babies?

The reality is that there is so much pain, hate, anger and confusion in the world. But rather than come together and start showing more loving kindness and compassion to each other, we continue on with our heads in the sand thinking we are separate and that our actions have no bearing on the lives of others. We are so wrong about that.

Any negative emotion or action breeds negative consequences around us. Anytime you put out hurtful words or actions into the world, (as benign as you may think they are), it causes a ripple effect of pain. That means any unkind thought, word or action is an act of violence against yourself and those around you. I promise you that it will disturb your peace and the peace of the planet.  If you are going to pay anything forward into the world, let it be love, or don’t bother. Why create more problems for yourself and for all of us?

Make a real difference in the world. Inspire others to be the best they can be. Stand up and decide that you want to live in a world of peace, love and happiness and work everyday to put just a small bit of that beautiful energy out into the world; it will transform your life and the lives of those around you.

We can no longer afford to go on living in a world of hate. We must all make a conscious decision to change the way we show up in life. Every little bit counts. Every smile and every kind word goes so far to make a difference. Consciousness creates change. Let there be peace on Earth and let it begin with each and every one of us.

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Going to the Bad Place

… is a one-way ticket DOWN. Guaranteed.

No one wants to go DOWN, but by succumbing to our negative thoughts about ourselves, we only succeed in keeping ourselves down and unhappy. Remember whatever you buy into is yours. Make sure you want it before purchasing.

Whenever you feel not good enough about yourself, or feel low, or inadequate, it is time to change that thought. Immediately shut it down and switch the thought to the highest thought you could have about yourself. Simply replace one thought with the other. Instead of focusing on the negative, we focus on something positive.

We have learned that you get what you think about. No one likes to think badly of themselves. So don’t do it. Switch your thought to a thought that makes you feel better about yourself. Even if it is not a real thought, maybe it is a fantasy… see it and believe it for yourself. Embody that energy and it will deter you from spiraling down to that bad place.

As Patanjali states in the Yoga Sutras, Book II – Sutra 33 – “Vitarka-Badhane- Prati-Paksa- Bhavanam”. When disturbed by disturbing thoughts, stop and think the opposite. 

Going to the bad place is just misguided energy. Take back your control of that energy and don’t buy into a thought that you do not want to own as yours. If it makes you feel uncomfortable, throw it out and replace it with an opposite thought. In time we realize that happiness is only ONE thought away.

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You Get What You Give

… so make sure what you are giving is exactly what you want to be receiving!

Seems simple enough, right? But we forget this simple precept all the time. We are our own worst enemies. We are the ones who complicate our own lives. We do this by unconsciously putting out behavior to the world that does not serve us.

When you are connected to the universal flow, things just work – you catch that subway when you are running late, you get just the right job lead when you need it – you are always in the right place at the right time. On the contrary, when you are in a cycle of “Murphy’s Law” and feel as if you are hitting your head against a wall and getting stuck at every corner, you are NOT in the universal flow. Life is meant to flow with ease, when it doesn’t, it is time to look at what it is you are putting out that might be deterring you from a life of ease and good fortune.

Life shows up for us as a direct response to our actions. If we are putting out short-tempered behavior latent with anger, hate, envy, bitterness or hurtful sarcasm, then that negative energy creates instant roadblocks for us and puts up walls that create many obstacles on our path. In other words, that curt comment you shouted at the store clerk will go further to undermine your performance at the job interview later that morning then anything else. Everything is connected. And when you are not connected, you are the one who loses.

You get what you give. The energy you expend will always come back to you tenfold – both positive and negative. If you find yourself constantly hitting roadblocks, it is time to slow down, take a step back, take a breath and consciously shift your energy to a higher thought or vibration – one that encourages a positive outcome both for yourself and for the world around you. Life is too short to be hitting your head on the wall over and over again. Recognize that there is always a better way of showing up.

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Think Before You Act

… you can’t take it back.

Believe it or not all words and actions have consequences. Some more severe than others. Sometimes when we are out of balance in our lives, we make impulsive decisions that may affect our futures. These impulsive decisions are made simply with the intent to make us feel better in the moment and NOT made for our highest good.

Life is meant to be led one step at a time. Every emotion is meant to be felt and dealt with, not run from. If you are making an impulsive decision to feel better in the moment and run from your pain, it will catch up with you. You cannot run from yourself and life offers us no “quick fixes,” that is for sure.

Slow down, take life one step at a time. Ask yourself before you make ANY decision, “is this decision going to bring me to where I want to be in my life” OR “is it going to sabotage my job, my love, or my relations with friends and family?” Once we slow down and process the implications of our actions, we may find that we are in a better place to make a different decision.

It is in a calm and centered space that we find the ability to NOT react hastily and make a decision we may regret. Life is too short to impulsively throw it away on a bad decision. No one needs to look back and regret something they have done. Stop. Slow down. Be in the moment and think before you act. I promise you if you live your life from this centered space, you will always make an informed decision NOT an impulsive one. We want to own our lives, not regret them.

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Happy People Create Happy Relationships

… they just do.

Happy people have the innate ability to create happier lives. Happy people realize that life is not to be taken so seriously. They learn to laugh more. They learn to bring more humor into every day situations (especially stressful situations). They learn to play more. They learn to be less controlling and open up to more surprises. They learn to go with the flow and not fight everything. They learn that their happiness is not contingent on others but on their ability to NOT react to other’s drama. They learn to let go of expectations and allow things to just be. They learn to let go of the small things and by doing so, they know the bigger things will fall into place much more quickly.

They learn that when they can plant the seeds of happiness and laughter into their everyday interactions that their everyday interactions will always be lighter and easier and much more joyful. You only get what you put out in life and happy people make sure that what is going out is always clear, light and easy-going.

Now, this is easier said than done as not all of us are gifted with happy, optimistic and easeful dispositions. More often than not, we tend to think that happiness is this intangible reward outside of us that we will simply never achieve. We spend too much time expressing disatisfacton with ourselves and our lives and still expect happiness to come knocking. We all know how to make life difficult and painful – that is easy – but we don’t all know how to make it easeful and happy. Here are a few suggestions for doing that:

Don’t take everything so seriously. Nothing in life is that important (trust me on that one!)

Learn to laugh at yourself. This is key. If you cannot laugh at yourself, you will always be insulted by others and feel attacked and sink into a very negative state. The ego is very vested in seriousness and being respected so watch out for this one!

Look to make things easier in all your relationships. Look for creating peace, ease and serenity, not confrontation. Believe it or not people are not always out to get you. And btw, no one wants to spend time with complicated, unhappy people.

Look to make things easier at work. The simplest answer is always the best one. Don’t over complicate and over-think solutions.

Learn to be more spontaneous. Make space for doing new things and breathing new life into experiences. This will open you up to attracting newer and much more pleasant experiences.

Don’t need to be right. Need only to be kind.

Look to make things easier on yourself. Simplify your resonsibilities. Delegate more. Take on help. No one needs to be cleaning the bathroom unless they enjoy it!

Create more personal time for yourself. Take more “me-breaks” and go on more vacations. You only live once.

Don’t hyper control everything. Learn to let go and accept that you are where you are for a reason and that there is a hidden gem there that will soon be revealed.

Realize that if you are given something, it is a gift. No one owes you anything.

Spend time only with people you want to spend time with. If they drain you, send them packing.

Remember that not everything has to be a problem. In fact, nothing has to be a problem. So reframe your imagined “problem” and think how can this be solved easier? Learn only to see opportunities.

Remember that no one has the power to make you unhappy. Only your reactions to others can cause you unhappiness.

These are just a few ways that happy people create happy relationships and therefore much more happier and engaging lives. We create our own problems by the way we see things. If you are not happy with your life, stop and ask yourself if your prefer to be happy or you prefer to be yourself. You might be surprised by your own answer.

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