by sublimity-001-main | May 16, 2013 | 2013, Emergence, Post
“There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction.”– John F. Kennedy
One big reason we stay in our comfort zones of inaction is the fear of failure. This isn’t news. It’s also common advice to embrace our failures and learn from them. This is a step up, however it still makes failure a bad thing we must learn to live with. But failure isn’t something to cope with anymore than breathing out is something we must cope with in order to breathe in – it’s part of the same breath!
Look at how we learn to walk. As babies, we step forward, fall, catch ourselves, try again, and catch ourselves sooner and sooner until we’re walking. But even when we’re walking, we’re still falling – we’re just catching ourselves in a controlled, rhythmic pattern. Walking is controlled falling.
Likewise, people become successful by failing, picking themselves up, and failing some more, catching themselves each time…until they’re succeeding.
Success is just controlled failing.
To put this into action, practice failing fast. Get in the habit of honoring your guidance and taking bold action in the direction of your vision. Execute, implement, and quickly discover the way not to do things so you can uncover new and better ways.
Like Edison and his over ten thousand attempts at the light bulb – he was finding out all the ways not to create a light bulb. He was also learning about electricity, conductivity, and much more – which could help him advance his knowledge and results in other areas.
Failing fast allows you to succeed fast. And if you do make mistakes, by making them fast, you end up with more time to correct them. As Jefferson said, “If I am to meet with a disappointment, the sooner I know it, the more of life I shall have to wear it off.”
In the heat of the moment, it appears as if failure is what we fear most. But if you extend your awareness into the future and imagine the cost of not trying, you’ll find that what you fear most is leaving this life having not fully lived it. Don’t die with your music still in you just because you’re afraid of singing out of tune.
by sublimity-001-main | May 16, 2013 | 2013, Emergence, Post, Wealth and Abundance
Nothing enters into this world except through the process of giving. If we don’t give, there can’t be more. If you want more to come into your life, you must let more life come out of you!
You are a divine power plant, and a power plant doesn’t receive energy, it generates it. Even the word human comes from a Sanskrit term for ‘man’ that means ‘The Dispenser of Divine Gifts.’
That’s who you are, that’s why you came here — you really are God’s gift to this world!
But there are many forms of giving. And you must engage all of them to fully activate the Generator in that divine power plant and create unlimited abundance in your experience.
The 7 Gifts of the Divine Dispenser
- Giving Forth: Share your time, talent, and treasure
- Giving Away: Circulate what you no longer need/use
- Giving Up: Release habits, criticism, complaints, judgment
- Giving In: Let go of resistance, surrender to what’s emerging
- Forgiving: Free yourself and others from emotional debt
- Giving to Yourself: Give you what you seek from others
- Giving Thanks: What you appreciate, appreciates
I invite you to activate this divine power plant like never before — to tune in, turn it on, and let it shine! To do this, look at each life structure (Health, Wealth, Work, Relationships, Spirituality, Service, Personal Development) and notice where you’re still trying to get something.
It could be love, approval, respect, validation. Or if it’s something material, ask what it symbolizes for you, what it stands for. For example, money might equal ‘safety, security, power, worth.’ Translate the physical into the spiritual quality.
Then actively give these to yourself each day, by asking: ìWhat would it look like to totally respect/love/approve myself? etc. — and follow the guidance!
If you’re really ready to activate your unlimited wealth and fulfill your destiny, I invite you to join the — The 40-Day Giving Challenge To be part of this, every day for the next 40 days, ask where you can give more in one of these life structures and/or in regards to one of the 7 Gifts above. You might pick one area to grow each day, or each week. Then share your experiences and breakthroughs on our FB pages. This is just the beginning of a life of awakened wealth and abundance. Welcome home…
by sublimity-001-main | May 16, 2013 | 2013, Post, Spiritual Growth
As we move toward spring, there’s a growing urge to emerge – to take bold action in the direction of our dreams. But there’s also the danger of getting caught in the Good Talk Trap. You know the type, they have big ideas but few of them ever come to fruition; they plant lots of seeds but don’t do the real work to bring them to harvest.
How many good ideas have died from a lack of patient and loving cultivation until the roots took hold? As Abigail Adams (wife of John Adams, the 2nd President of the U.S.) said: “We have too many high sounding words and too few actions that correspond with them.” Or as Mark Twain put it: “Action speaks louder than words, but not nearly as often.”
We must be still with our ideas long enough for them to work on us, to sink deep within the soil of our soul like a seed that must be planted before it can grow. Otherwise our ideas won’t lay down the root system to sustain them through the tempests, droughts, and baking heat that ideas must often weather on their way to fulfillment. As Blaise Pascal said, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
While it’s valuable to get feedback on our ideas, we must avoid over-analyzing and talking too much about them, which saps the vital energy for actualizing them — burning up the fuse that could’ve generated an explosion of creative action. There’s a time to talk and a time to walk that talk. If all you’re doing is talking and no walking, you won’t get anywhere. As Carl Jung put it “You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.” If you want to have the life you envision and be the person you imagine, talk less about it and act more like it.
by sublimity-001-main | May 16, 2013 | 2013, Emergence, Post
Desire sometimes gets a bad rap in the spiritual world. Perhaps it started with Buddha who supposedly said desire causes suffering. And has led to many teachings that imply that desires aren’t spiritual and we should strive for a desire-less state.
But desires aren’t the problem, our misperception of them is. The word ‘Desire’ actually has a deeper meaning: ‘of the sire,’ as in father or Creative Principle. Your desires are not a sign of something outside of you that you must get – they’re a sign of something inside of you trying to get out.
That burning desire you have is something you’re pregnant with. When you understand this, you can celebrate your desires just as you would the news that you (or your significant other) are pregnant. You can nurture that idea growing within you, feeding it, strengthening it, preparing the outer space for its arrival.
Remember, The Law of Emergence isn’t some New Age gimmick, it’s the way life actually works – and when we become congruent with it, our life works a lot better. The secret is to reverse your relationship with desire.
The deep desire you feel is a clue to what’s already inside trying to emerge; it’s telling you what you need to nurture. Cease from striving. Feel that baby kicking, pat your belly with a sigh of gratitude, and settle in to the process of giving birth to the next stage of your destiny.
by sublimity-001-main | Apr 12, 2013 | 2013, Emergence, Post, Tools
Want to know what you really believe in? Don’t look at what you’re thinking, saying, affirming, or praying, look at what you’re doing – especially under pressure. If you profess to believe in something, but your actions are not in integrity with it, you’ll suffer and become stagnant. But if you align your actions with your highest vision, no matter what, you’ll rapidly shape the raw material of your life. As Thomas Jefferson said, “Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask, act! Action will delineate and define you.”
Years ago I wanted to make an investment in my business but, not believing I could afford it, I waited for circumstances to change. After much waiting and struggling, only to have things get worse, I visited my spiritual mentor, looking for reassurance and moral support. What I got instead was a challenge. He said if I believed all the spiritual truths I espoused — that life was abundant and God supported me — and didn’t act on them, I was out of integrity with myself and would continue to suffer.
I explained that I did believe I was supported, it was just, well, that I was afraid my rent wouldn’t get paid. Before I even completed my excuse, I knew he was right. I was praying out of both sides of my mouth – affirming that life was abundant on one side and making up reasons why I couldn’t move forward on the other. I was living a lie, at least a lie against my own values. As Ghandi said, “To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.” My lack of integrity was preventing me from holding the energy necessary to manifest my vision. Like a house that lacks structural integrity, and collapses under its own weight, my inner house was divided and could not stand.
One definition of integrity is to align your beliefs, words, and actions with each other – to be whole and undivided. But this is relative integrity because you could believe life is hard (even though in Reality it isn’t) then struggle in accordance with that belief, becoming exhausted, burnt out, and disillusioned. Another definition of integrity is to be moral, ethical, and honest. But you can be a moral, ethical, honest person who, according to your cultural beliefs, would never pursue your deepest desire. The truest integrity, however, is about being congruent with your Soul’s Purpose, your real nature – which may be in opposition to your cultural, parental, or societal beliefs and values. That’s why visionary leaders are often seen as heretics, lunatics, or worse.
Living at this level of integrity requires faith, which means living more by insight than eyesight, more from the invisible that the world of appearances. But like intention, faith is another dangerous practice when sequestered by the ego. We say we have faith that all our needs will be met, and that declaration of faith gives us a temporary sense of fulfillment or accomplishment. But too often these faith-filled pronouncements are followed by actions that contradict them – or no action at all.
As Mitch Albom says, “Faith is about doing. You are how you act, not just how you believe.” Or as it says in James 2:17, “…faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” It’s good to affirm and feel the energy of faith. But it is action, in integrity with your highest vision, that makes that faith a living, breathing reality in your life.
EXERCISE
This week, look at one area you’re feeling stuck in or an area you are praying for or affirming something and ask: “What would I do in this area if I really believed I was supported (or whatever quality you feel is lacking, such as abundant, loved, respected, etc.).”
Then look at your Big Vision and ask: “If I really believed in this vision, what would I do, where would I go, who would I talk to, or how would I be in the world?”
Then create a plan to take consistent, congruent action on the answers you get – and share them on our Facebook pages, so we can all learn and be inspired!
To Your Emergence!
www.DerekRydall.com
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by sublimity-001-main | Apr 12, 2013 | 2013, Post, Spiritual Growth
Are you living as cause, or at the effect of life?
In The Wizard of Oz, all the characters believed they were victims, beholden to some external power to give them what they needed to succeed — in their case, it was the wizard.
But as they discovered, what they were waiting for, they already had — but they had to stop looking outside of them, stop being at the effect of others, and start being cause.
I don’t know if the songwriter knew what he was writing when he penned this lyric, but it says it all.
“We’re off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz, because because because because because — because of the wonderful things he does!”
Take a look at that line again. Do you see it? The mystical message?
Let me break it down…
Be-CAUSE, be-CAUSE, be-CAUSE, be-CAUSE, be-CAUSE…be-CAUSE of the wonderful things he does.
BE the CAUSE of, not at the effect of.
It even tells us what to be the cause of…’the wonderful things HE does.’
And who is this “he”? The wizard that they ultimately discover lives within them. Another name for this wizard… True Self, God, Love, Higher Power.
And what are the wonderful things he does? He (or she) gives courage, strength, power, love — all the things we want but believe we must get from someone or something outside of us in order to be whole and return home again.
But instead we are told that we must be cause of all these wonderful things.
Whatever’s missing is what you’re not giving, because everything is already within you. This is one of the greatest truths ever revealed by the master teachers throughout the ages. But simply knowing this truth isn’t enough. We must consciously activate and participate in it.
Meet the Wizard Within
Look at one area of your life where you feel stuck, where you feel “at the effect of” the person or situation. What are you waiting to see, hear, or receive before you can feel empowered?
Imagine you now have it; visualize yourself living in the solution, in the ideal situation where this area is concerned. Really let yourself feel it. Take note of the qualities you feel.
Ask yourself: “Who would I be if this situation was resolved fully? How would I feel, how would I act, what would I do?”
Then ask yourself: “What would it look like for me to be this person in my life now?”
Don’t accept a vague answer like “be more authentic…” Ask what that would look like, where specifically you are moved to be that… Keep asking until you get some actionable guidance.
Finally, ask: “What activities, people, environments, or objects make me feel the way I would feel if this situation was resolved?”
Make a list of all the possibilities. Then make a plan to engineer these things into your life. Start with one week that includes:
1. At least one way that you can be the person you would be if this situation was resolved. As Gandhi said, we must be the change we want to see.
2. One to three activities that make you feel these feelings of empowerment.
3. Some quality time with people who make you feel these feelings.
4. At least one trip to an environment that makes you feel these feelings.
5. One to three new objects in your space (pictures, music, scents, trinkets) that activate these feelings.
Put this plan on your calendar. Don’t just think about it or write a to-do list. Actually make the time and space to do these things. It won’t happen otherwise. Re-evaluate after a week and create a month-long plan.
Then ease on down the road…
But remember, the yellow brick road is not a path we take merely outside, it is a journey we take within… to that Emerald City of the soul where we discover we have been at the controls all along.
There’s no place like home.
Until next time, live authentically, love unconditionally, and follow your destiny!
Derek
