Food for Thought / Higher Intellect – Designing & Defining Your "Self"

If you could design and define yourself from scratch, what does that look like to you?

Did you know that you have complete and total control over your life?  Who you are in this world.  How you are and Who you are to the people in this world.  Even control over how you are impacted by the happenings of the world and the people around you.

At any given moment (like THIS ONE) you can mold yourself into any way of being you’d like.  We are not made of cement.  We are not bound by rules or walls or boxes or cages…. Not when it comes to who WE are as individuals.  We are not constrained by any other than ourselves, and we have complete control over even that.  So if life is not “working out the way you want it to”… I encourage you to explore some ideas.   Who cares, why up to this point it’s not worked out… none of that matters, it’s not like you can go back in time.  Only where you are going from this moment forward matters.

Come explore with me:

Make a list of the things you love about yourself. (keep pile)

Make a list of things that you know hold you back in life. (toss pile)

Without consideration of how it currently is, or lack of money or lack of energy, without consideration of the past and how things may have or may have not gone… like on a blank canvas paint these answers for yourself.  Imagine 5 years from now.. you with an amazing life, I mean AMAZING!!!! Blow the top off amazingly amazing,  incredibly happy, waking up every morning fulfilled and completely at peace with how life is!  From that space, the image of 5 years from now, answer these questions (and any others you think of) for yourself.

What does the ideal relationship look like for you?

What does the ideal job look like for you?

What does the ideal weekend look like for you?

What does your living environment look like for you?

What do you look like to / how do you occur to other people?

What would you give the world that it has a lack of?

What would ultimately define your happiness?

Now – on your canvas, looking at everything you’ve ever wanted laid out in front of you, move the canvas 4 ½ feet in front of your body.   Now, imagine turning it slightly translucent… a little more… a little more… perfect.  You can still see the outlines of what your ideal life looks like, but can also see reality as it comes toward you or you towards it, right?

In every interaction you have with the world, look at your choices for action through this translucent filter of WHO YOU WANT TO BE and have your actions correlate to those qualities you want for yourself.  When your actions correlate to what you want in the Ideal Version of You…. You become in every action what you want.  You ARE this person you want to be.  And it starts happening the very first time you correlate the action.  You will find that overnight, you’ve reached your 5 year goals in a matter of days maybe weeks.

Challenge yourself to be a role model for how you want your life to be.  Show yourself how amazing you are by being committed to having that life you want for yourself, not tomorrow, not next week, not next year.. but right here, right now, in every interaction you have.  Be committed to a life of happiness.  It’s *your* life, give that gift to yourself!

How much more will you gain from life by no longer trying to fix what doesn’t work and keeps showing up again and again?  If you will create for yourself a custom made template of your “way of being” and then wield your perception of life through that… You will begin to see what a huge role you really play in your life.  And an even bigger role, you play in your happiness.

And in a week or a year from now, when you’ve exceeded your expectations of that “ultimate happiness 5 years from now goal”… I encourage you to wipe your canvas clean and do it again!  Because LIFE is as amazing and as vast as you can imagine it to be. 

I’ll leave you with the thought I shared with a friend the other day, “Exactly what IS the brightest a star can shine?”   I say we find out.

Peace, Love & Fulfillment-

Starshine

Thoughts on Being Afraid to Fail

o      You can try and fail OR you can fail because you've never tried.

I've found the ONLY time I struggle with my identity, is when I'm resisting not being it. Might be better said like this... we become accustomed to ourselves (our identity) and very complacent in such a way because we KNOW we can survive like that.  And FEAR has you retreat back into your identity, because it’s safe there.... incredibly limiting life inside our own self-made captivity, but again we know we can survive there.

I've created a fantastic distinction around this, and I will share it with you.   Anytime I "struggle" on ANYTHING (tear up, feel angry or out of control, depressed or anxious) <~ that is my Identity doing IT'S thing, not Self doing MY thing ... I can distinguish the struggle is inauthentic and I am able to push the struggle aside by saying to myself the following and taking a leap of faith in an action that correlates.

"Follow your fear"

When you struggle, it's because your identity has you afraid of it. If you fear it/struggle with it... please know THAT is not you!!! It's the identity.  As part of self-awareness, "If you can distinguish it, you're not it".  Directly put - You are not your fear. Go towards that fear, instead of retreat from it... go towards it (sometimes this really really does feel like a blind leap of faith, I get that) but when you go towards your fear and create the action of doing something even though you are terrified of it, your identity is the one to retreat and you will find an amazing amount of confidence bestowed upon you and the world will open up for you as you move out of your own space (in your head) and into it’s space (reality).

Give it a try. Go do any one thing you've been telling your self you can't do. Go do it, today. Be unreasonable with yourself, force yourself to walk straight at the fear and you will find the fear is nothing but an illusion. Identity's illusion, not Yours. It's not real, it’s made up, to keep us safe from being eaten by a wild animal like back in the old days!!! Other than at the zoo, there are no tigers, lions or bears out here in our daily lives, yet we continue to treat our ability to do things like there is one standing on every single street corner. It's an illusion my friend. There is nothing, at all, to fear. Follow your fear and prove to yourself that it never existed to begin with. And if you make yourself ride that bike just one time even, there will be nobody in this world *including your identity* that will ever be able to hold you back from doing it again.

"Follow your fear."

What is socially acceptable?

Well… everything.  If you ask me. 

If you asked Cambridge, it says “PROPER” – “showing standards of behavior that are socially and morally acceptable.”

But wait, the question is… what is Socially Acceptable?  This is not a morality question.   Mustard on French Fries, where’s that stand in morality?  The statement is inherently flawed, because it’s made up.  The statement itself is an example of its name.

Here’s where I’m going with this….  

One day 10 white hair people sat around talking and one person said out loud “I want to dye my hair red”, and all the white haired people laughed then turned their cheek at this person and thought them insane, like blasphemy.  Embarrassed, this person laughed and retreated from their desire to express, by saying it was just in jest.  Dying hair red became not socially acceptable.  The white haired people left the gathering and mentioned the absurdity of red hair to other white haired people and thus reinforced the view, the collective agreement, that red hair was not “socially acceptable”.

One day 10 white hair people sat around talking and one person said out loud “I saw a rose this morning and couldn’t help but be taken by its beauty.  How the rays of light shined across the bend of the red petals and I felt complete happiness in its presence. I want to dye my hair red and be reminded every day of how beautiful and expressive things can be”.    A little taken for a moment there, one by one the white haired people shared in this thought about things they had seen that made them feel something special.  Inspired, one of the white haired people shared that she had seen in another village a woman crushing berries and using the red juices to color ribbon.  Another shared a willingness to assist in trying it.  Another heard that willingness and asked if she’d do hers too.  And like wild fire, excitement grew throughout the village of this new and exciting expression that anyone could be a part of.  And thus dying hair red became “socially acceptable”.

Here’s the difference.  When a thought is expressed, depending on level of self-awareness and inner peace, it is expressed from a space. 

When a thought is expressed from a space of fear (where you pull away from what you really want in order to avoid what others think – which really just brings the likelihood of that occurrence closer to you)… this place of fear is what has you sputter something out, in desperation to get it out there… but has it not be fully expressed the way you know in your heart for it to be.  The recipient feels the push towards your idea, and has no choice but to resist it.   

When a thought is expressed from a space of love, peace, expression and growth… There is no push or pull, but growth.  In the enrollment of others, where they can actually see for themselves the idea as it occurs for you…. Has them want to grow as well, and leave behind the small part of themself that previously wouldn’t have been open to experiencing something new. 

The growth is not possible, within just you.  We are truly connected and require one another in order for us to experience things and personally grow.   That is why They are more important than You are (even in typing that I feel my identity resist it… and thus I KNOW, it’s true).  We are so blindingly vain in our worthiness, that we really do think that “OUR” life is about us and us alone.   

You will only get it, when you give it to them.  Consider the possibility…. That that is how it really works.