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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Learning Life Lessons

… is the only reason you are here.

You are here right now to learn. That is it. That is the big mystery of life. You are here to improve yourself and your level of consciousness. With every lesson learned in a lifetime, you move up – closer to happiness, closer to freedom, closer to God.

This is why it is extremely important that we are consciously walking through life and not sleepwalking our way through it. Sleepwalking is a favorite pastime of ours – numbing ourselves with overworked schedules, alcohol, food, drugs, electronics, media, etc…

If you are ready to be more conscious and want to know what is really going on in your life, look at your landscape. Who are the people and situations around you? How are they influencing you? What affect do they have on you day-to-day?

We make contracts with other souls to teach us our life lessons. Nothing every shows up in our lives that doesn’t have a reason for being and that reason is to teach us something. Our work is to decipher the lesson, overcome it and make our life better because of it.

Wonder what your life lessons are? Here are a few basic life lessons that many people face today:

If you are working on Self-esteem, you will attract people who walk all over you/take you for granted.

If you are working on Anger you will attract people who test your patience.

If you are working on Tolerance, you will attract people who challenge your notions of what is proper/acceptable.

If you are working on Self-worth, you will attract people who try to undermine you/cross your boundaries.

If you are working on Selfishness, you will attract people who are needy.

If you are working on Forgiveness, you will attract people who continually hurt you.

If you are working on Emotional Independence, you will attract people who try to control you.

If you are working on Balance, you will attract people who create drama in your life.

If you are working on Patience, you will attract people who push your buttons.

Now that you start to recognize the pattern, you can make great change in your life and change you WILL MAKE. Learn your lessons – get them early. The longer it takes you to get them, the harder they get. They repeat with each new relationship you have until you stop buying into the lesson and start reacting differently. When you finally get the lesson, it stops… and life continues on – much sweeter and easier.

Are you ready to learn?

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Nothing Ever Leaves Your Life

… until it has taught you what you need to know.

People and situations come in and out of our lives to teach us something. It is a part of life. The true learning comes from recognizing that if someone or something has left your life, it is because it was time for it to do so. Once we learn the lessons we move on to a much higher playing field (happier, more abundant, etc..)

Trouble begins when we are reluctant to let go of what we know is not serving us (toxic job, relationship, etc..). It is up to you to recognize when a person or situation has outlived its purpose and let it go. You know you are holding on too long when the situation becomes uncompromising, frustrating and you are beating your head on a wall over and over again with no new result. You can hold onto that old lesson but doing so will assure you of reliving that lesson over and over again. But we rarely acknowledge this pattern in ourselves. Instead we prefer to hold on and hope the situation will change in our favor but it never does.

What’s worse with holding on to old lessons is that you can only hold onto them for so long before they get ripped away from you and you are you left with nothing but a sense of loss and abandonment. The universe will eventually clear the decks and take away what you were not strong enough to do yourself.

Why keep yourself back? Recognize when you get the lesson and be strong enough to extact yourself from the negative pattern. Invite change and new life in. You cannot hold onto your “accomplishments” forever, eventually it is time to evolve them and encourage yourself to grow past them. This is how we grow. You cannot lose what is real for you, if it leaves your life, it is because you are meant to grow beyond it.  

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Moving On

… is truly the purpose of life.

But unfortunately we never see it that way. We get caught up in the daily dramas of life and tend to allow our challenges to overwhelm us and sometimes win over us.

Life is filled with challenges. Yours is to NOT give in to the challenges, yours is to

FACE them. 

RISE ABOVE them.

GROW from them. 

and make yourself BETTER because of them.

No one said life was going to be easy. If you wanted easy, you wouldn’t have chosen this life. You are here because you chose to evolve. So here is where the work begins.

Don’t spend you life hiding under rocks from those challenges. Those challenges represent your life lessons. They are there for a reason. They are there to test your reserve and your fortitude. They are there to bring up your darkest fears and insecurities. They are there to force you to look into the mirror and see who you really are. You really learn who you are once you have overcome a huge obstacle in your life. We say it is “character building.”

Sometimes your challenges can drop you to your knees but again, yours is not to lie down and sulk, yours is to get right back up and keep walking. Moving on is the name of the game. That is the only way you can transform the lesson. Do you want to live your life like a coward hiding under a rock or do you want to meet those challenges face-on screaming “Give me your best shot!”. Who you are is always greater than your lessons. Always. Who you are will always persevere against adversity and all challenges but you must believe in yourself for it to be so.

Don’t decide to roll over and feign death – you cannot hide from your challenges. You can buy yourself time – maybe a year or two – but that challenge will always come back with a vengence and when it does the lesson always gets harder.

Stand up to your challenges and transform them. Move on with your life. Make your life better because of what you have gone through. The rest of your life awaits and it is filled with many rich rewards for all your bravery.

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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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Creating Space for Happiness

… is the magic elixir of life.

In our society, we understand the importance of working hard to make the money but we seldom understand the importance of creating the space in our lives to enjoy what that money can afford us. 

It is so often that we work so hard to make a living that we forget our lives. We put ourselves in such time impoverished positions that we can feel our lives being sucked away from us minute by minute. Busying yourself to make the money yields you little to no reward.  We think money is its own reward, but we are wrong. Happiness is its own reward and it cannot be found if we are too busy to open up to it.

Happiness is not something that you earn or that you are “lucky enough to come across.” Happiness doesn’t just happen to you, it is cultivated from within. But you will never be able to experience true happiness if you do not slow down and create small moments to enjoy your life. 

You can make all the money in the world, but if you have no time to enjoy it, it doesn’t serve you. Finding the balance between work and self-joy is the key. When you can allocate enough time in your life to enjoy the money you have earned, it is as if you are giving thanks to the universe and showing gratitude for the abundance in your life. Abundance always draws more abundance to you. But if you are exhausted and feeling time impoverished, you will continue to feel as if you are chasing your tail. And where there is no self-joy, there will never be true abundance. We need to create real space in our busy lives for happiness to enter.

If you truly want to be happy, find the space in your life to ENJOY your life, to truly enjoy the fruits of your labor. Otherwise your life will always just be about the labor. The money will always follow. Self-joy is what will attract true abundance – not working endless hours in an office. Once you carve out the space for happiness to enter, the people, the relationships, the joy will all return to your life. They cannot live in a world where there is no space for them. Everything is energy and where there is no space, there will never be happiness.

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Letting Go Of The Old

… is the ONLY way to move forward in your life.

Somehow we think that keeping the old will enable us to open the door to the new. It never does. When a person or a situation has outlived its purpose, it is important to close the door on the old, so that you can create SPACE for the new.

Holding onto what does not serve you does not all of a sudden change. If you decide to pack up what didn’t work for you in 2012 and sling it over your shoulder and haul it into 2013, you will get the same nonsense in 2013. If it didn’t work for you then, I promise you, it will not all of a sudden work now.

Why burden yourself with what you know does not make you happy? When you learn to cut ties to the past and open up to a bright new future, you are creating space for the new future to come in. But when you hold onto what does not work for you, it is as if you are telling the universe you are content and you do not need something new. Look at it this way, if your glass if full of dirty water that you cannot drink, in essence, you are telling the universe that you do not need a refill of fresh water. But in actuality, you are dying of thirst. Pour out the dirty water and allow yourself to be filled with what you truly want and desire in life.

You cannot create change if there is no space. Don’t spend you life being “full” with what is making you unhappy. Be strong and allow yourself the opportunity to throw out the old and make room for the new. The rest of your life awaits. What are you waiting for?

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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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Focusing on Problems

… NEVER brings solutions.

Simply put…

The less you think of trouble, the less of it you get.

The more you think of things that please you, the better you will feel.

And the better you feel, the better things will go for you.

End of story. ’Tis one of the spiritual laws of the universe.

But in our society, we love to dwell on the negative and more importantly we like to play the victim and wallow in states of self-pity. Somehow we find solace in misery. And as we know, misery loves company.

If we could remember that everything is energy and everything that we attract to us is contingent on our energetic vibration, then we would realize that we are supremely in control of our lives. If we are filled with love and happiness and self-contentedness, then every person and situation we attract to us will be loving, supportive and happy. But if we are focused on self-loathing, insecurity and fear, we will only succeed in drawing to us vibrational matches to those low level energies. And before you know it, we are surrounded with mean, selfish and harsh people and situations.

Think: vibrational match. When you want to attract something, you have to focus on those qualities – the perfect relationship, the perfect job, happy friendships, etc… but at the same token, if we do NOT WANT SOMETHING, we have to be very careful NOT TO PUT OUR ATTENTION ON IT. Our mere attention to the problem, feeds the negative energy and “stokes the fire.” If you do not want something in your life, DO NOT focus on it. If you have to solve it – solve it quickly and objectively and shut it down. Do not get entwined in the emotionality of the situation. That negative emotionality is what will begin to bring forth more of the same and only succeed in complicating your problems.

Not only do you get what you give, but you get what you think about. If you do not want it in your life, do not give it any attention whatsoever. 

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