Understanding Being.

In answer to Facebook friend George's question:

"Life-long issue: intellectualizing "spiritual" or "mystical" experiences. My desire to understand everything makes it difficult to rest in the intuitive knowing of "God" or "truth" or "the universe" or "consciousness" --- whatever you want to call it. That which cannot be named. I've experienced it so profoundly but always return to the quest to define and comprehend it, then I end up with a lot of concepts about what I experienced, a poor substitute for simply BEING it."

Thumb it up, share it up, spread the love.

And send me your questions, in a comment or a message. I'm happy to help.

Low Self-esteem (and what to do about it)

“I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing light of your 

own being”

 ~ Hafiz

You may suspect that you have low self-esteem,

but you probably have no idea what to do about it!

Most articles about self-esteem talk about thinking positively, making affirmations, smiling a lot, etc. These things are just band-aids – they will only serve to suppress the truth about how you feel about yourself for a short time. I am not interested in band-aids. I am interested in prevention and cure…

In this post I’m going to tell you what self-esteem is really all about; how it is negatively affected; why I think it’s hugely important that we do do something about it – and what to do.

What is self-esteem?

(other than a term that is much used and little understood)

My definition of self-esteem is 5 words:

~ ‘how deeply you love yourself’ ~

So, how deeply do you love yourself?!

(Don’t worry, I’ll help you answer that question quite accurately in just a moment)…

Mark Ruffalo Occupies Wall Street with passion, compassion, intelligence, charisma

I was an actor once. A terrible actor. I made audiences cringe. I myself cringed inwardly on stage. I had no confidence. I was in a play at the National Theatre once (just the once) and my parents got in the elevator with Neil Kinnock (head of the opposition party at the time). That's my claim to acting fame. That's how bad I was. Thank God I don't have to act anymore; I found my real purpose in life.

Then there's Mark Ruffalo. He's a great actor. I could watch him all day. There's an openness and an integrity about him that is very attractive. I've seen a few of his movies and I always felt like he's the kind of guy I'd like to get to know. A good guy.

Then there's Occupy (Wall Street). I love that movement. I put the brackets around the Wall Street part because I don't feel it's really about Wall Street any more. It's about... no, wait.

Occupy has become a global movement and it's only going to get bigger. It's going to get bigger and bigger because more and more people are awakening to the simple truth of who they really are. More and more people are becoming conscious of their own innate power. We are not sheep. We are not here to be herded around like cattle, victims of a system that is based on greed and fear, so that 1% can prosper and be free while 99% live without dignity...

We are human beings: perfect, beautiful, powerful expressions of pure consciouness. We are free already, and as more and more people awaken to that simple truth by letting go of survival based fears, the system in which we live is changing. Occupy is a sign of that change - and I for one am overjoyed to see it happening.

So what's Occupy about? I'll let Mark Ruffalo explain it much better than I can:

And an equally intelligent, even more eloquent 'call to arms':

Live life like...

Many thanks to the wonderful artist JellyVampire for this beautiful, inspiring, and uplifting artwork:

Get off the page, out of your box.

Be creative and bold and dance the dance of your life with wild abandon...

Like you've got nothing to lose.

Paint the canvas of your life liberally, generously,

With a flourish or whilst poring over every detail, but do it:

Like you've got nothing to lose.

Sing the song of your life with all the emotional color you can muster,

Every shade and nuance at your disposal.

Spare nothing and no-one, like

You've got nothing to lose.

Because really,

You have nothing to lose.

Pure beauty (A poem by Ben Ralston)

Beauty is not something you buy in the aisles of drug stores,

Or (cosmetic) surgeries,

Or anywhere,

In fact.

Beauty is a feeling, deep within;

An overflowing, slow-flowing surge

that lifts and burns and Devours

With subtlety.

Pure beauty is the essence of life itself:

Show me a living being, and I’ll show you Beautiful.

Because when you feel that surge within

All of without is moved by it.

Beauty is the light that guides your eyes,

The waves that open your ears,

The nerves that soften your skin.

Beauty

Is

That which feels.

We all want beauty.

But it’s in our desire to own it

That we lose sight

Of the only place it can really be found...

Offended by the word Cunt? (This one’s for you)

Mark was my best friend.

We grew up together. I knew him since I was 4 years old.

We used to sleep over at each other’s houses, sliding down the staircases in sleeping bags, keeping each other’s parents awake at night.

I never felt comfortable in his house though. Everything was too clean and tidy – not a thing out of place.

And he wasn’t allowed to say ‘God’. He got round this by saying Gaw’ instead (like Gawd – ‘Queen’s English’ pronunciation, but without the D). I remember the first time I heard him say it. I laughed out loud.

His mother (who I must say is a lovely lady, and still friends with my mother) didn’t let him say God, but Gaw’ was ok. Even though we all knew that the meaning was the same.

I was always afraid of his Mother as a child. She reminded me of Nurse Ratched.

The thing that bothered me the most about this vocabulary restriction that my friend was under – it sounded so contrived. As if, at the moment when he wanted to exclaim “Oh my God, the house is on fire!” or “Good God, I’ve never seen such a large carrot”, or “God Almighty is that really the time?”, he had to check his surprise / indignation / relief, and redirect his feeling into another direction. It was the censorship of expression that I found hard to swallow...

Miraculous, instant healing!

I just did an amazing therapy session!

The client wanted to shift an emotional problem – he was finding himself ‘reacting’ negatively in certain situations. Specifially, he found himself feeling aggressive toward people for no good reason.

He gave this example: He had recently had a business meeting (he works in the sports industry). When the woman he was meeting with began to innocently describe how good her system of training was (inadvertently implying that his was less good) he suddenly felt aggressive towards her. Obviously, his sense of worth was threatened… but how to heal this?

Of course this was a big problem for him – in this instance it threatened not only his momentary emotional balance and mental clarity, but potentially also his long-term business and personal relationships.

We used the elegantly simple technique of RPT, and fully healed him not only of this problem – he also got more than he bargained for…

The 'key' to personal development

I will share with you now some things that are little known, yet highly important in personal development.

Many people are working on developing themselves in many ways. If you google ‘therapy’ (or ‘healing’, or ‘personal development’), you’ll find literally thousands of different kinds of modalities.

Almost all of them are either energy based (reiki, bio-energetic techniques), or emotional based (heart based healing, E.F.T), or psychologically based (NLP, psychotherapy).

A common reaction to healing (especially to the energy / heart based techniques) is a feeling of euphoria, often accompanied by tears of joy. People often believe that they’ve “really healed it this time” because the feeling is so intense.

However, the truth is that if you have this kind of tearful reaction to therapy, you’ve probably only healed yourself on the energy / emotional level. The symptoms are healed (hence the feeling of euphoria – it’s a relief!), but the relief is only temporary. Very likely the problem will persist, perhaps in a different form.

EGO 1 - What is ego?

I want to talk about ego, and whether or not it is real. This will be a series of articles. First, we'll discuss 'What Is Ego?'
In the next article we'll talk about the implications - namely, that much of the spiritual 'work' that many people do and have done (including myself) for many years, is almost a waste of time.
It's a complex subject, so I will try to keep it as simple as I possibly can. I also want to keep it interesting, so that you stay with me to the end!


The reason I want to write about this now is that I see so many people struggling with what they think is ego - so many people get caught up in the idea that we have an ego, and that we have to 'conquer' it, and that it's difficult. This is simply giving power to the thing which they think are fighting with!
My belief is that the ego is nothing. It doesn't exist. It's not real. It's just a mistaken belief that we get caught up in, and because we get caught up in it, we fight it, and the more we fight it, the more real it seems... like being caught in a net - the more you struggle, the more you get caught up...