Horse & Rider, Emotions & Logic

All sentient beings have the potential to stop the spinning of the rat race wheel at any given moment. Yet we don’t…. like bad elevator music running in the background it goes unnoticed and untamed.   Meanwhile amongst this chaos we create the perception of our reality.  A false reality, one we will fight tooth and nail for like an animal…. But not even be in love with. 

As I love analogies please allow me to share one of my favorites.  It’s a representation I use, to create outside of myself a tangible image, as an assessment and aid for myself.  I refer to it as being the horse or being the rider.

We live in an emotionally driven world, emotionally driven culture and emotionally driven upbringing.  Emotions are like lightning, they show up unpredictable and sometimes can be beautifully expressive and sometimes can cause complete disaster… they’re much like an untamed horse.  We, as humans, are like an untamed horse – and don’t even realize it.  Startled by what frightens us, fight or flight, we kick up our feet in defense or we flee from what we believe is the source of the upset.  We’re steered by our feelings and our beliefs about the way we feel in such a way that the use of higher intellect and logic are not even remotely accessible in those moments.  Unfortunately, it is specifically in those moments they are needed the most, as those unguarded actions become the mile markers in the wake of our path.  The permanence of how the world sees us, until it lays new eyes upon us again.   Once you gain control of your horse, you may rise above and be the rider.  Be the command of your life, the center focus and creator of where you go, how you get there and how fast you stride.  We are just as capable of being in that kind of control as we are capable of breathing.

How to ride your horse as an analogy to life and what to expect:

FIRST, with full intention, grab hold firmly by the bit (This is Ownership… you can’t be in control of your life if you’re not even willing to put your hands on it.  It’s uneasy only because you are uncertain what happens next.  What happens next is not “chaos” like the voice in your head has been warning, but a simple sensation of “stun” or “silence”.  In that quiet space, one might try to immediately return to the scramble… don’t let it, hold firm, sit with the silence… the quiet, the clarity)

SECOND, show affection (This is Respect…  you’ll never win over a part of yourself that thinks you’re not worthy for it to listen to.   Be connected to your emotions and have an honest relationship with them.  How you process the data from your life, comparing it to previous apples and create the patterns to which to trust in or avoid, is how you USED to be.  Respect that for what it was, let it be what it is, and process differently now)

THIRD, mount quickly with reigns in hand and stay calm and steady (This is where Resistance may show up…  you second guess yourself anytime you’re trying something new or putting yourself out there in a way you’ve not before…  resisting being a better version of yourself is totally natural.  Expect it, push it aside when it shows up, and stay focused on being in control.. This antsy-ness will pass, the sooner you quit worrying about it being there, the faster it will pass)

FOURTH, create direction (This is Living… no one says you can only ride if you ride a path clearly marked.  Fuck that path.  Create your own… You may be surprised to see the mountains move and rivers part to greet you as a guest to where you’ve never before been.  Where ever in life, love, fun, relationships, careers you’ve not before been… go there now and take in the new world with childlike curiosity)

FIFTH, remind, reassure and redirect (This is where Life will try to Life ya…. This is where practice will make or break you as a rider.  If you want to be a rider, be committed to being a rider at all times.  If you find yourself face down in the dirt, get up and get right back on.  That moment has passed the minute you stand up, don’t make it mean more than it is.  When your emotions kick up… be completely present to the emotions.  See those emotions kick up like a horse lifting on its hind legs.  You’re either going to fall off your horse or someone is going to get hurt… unless, you control your horse.  BE. THE. RIDER.  Hold firm to logic, look at the facts of what is occurring and silence all the voices that tell you how to feel about it.  Silence all the stories about what it means and how it’s just like something else.  No two moments in life are the same, only the stories we make up about them are.  Calm your horse, hold firm the reigns and redirect.  Remind your horse that you are its rider and it doesn’t make the decisions about where you go anymore. The more consistently you redirect your horse when it kicks up, the less it will kick up... and the more centered and peaceful life will be)

A Master Rider’s horse only rises to its hind legs when commanded to do so.

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."

Thoughts on Identity

Experiencing both sides of the coin myself, I deeply relate to those in the mud.  Just as the lotus, I'm a living example showing it's possible to break the surface of confinement and come into a new world (the authentic world) unscathed. 

One of the most interesting things I've found about my former identity is that it was craftier than I even knew.  The front or mask of "well put together" or "very organized" (<- if you've seen my house, are you kidding me?  It's the other end of the spectrum from what I present to the professional world) and "generous" and "relatable" and "fun".... all were masks I wore to compensate for gaping holes that 98% of the people in my life were never even privy to.  Then the 2% that did ever see them, fell into them.  Those that knew me deeply got hurt, and those that did not get hurt... hardly knew me at all.  I spent the first 32 years, just repeatedly trying to fill in holes... that weren't even there to being with. 

Honestly, until now... seeing the world from outside myself, I never knew compassion.  Not like this.  I certainly never knew compassion for one's self.  When you have compassion for others, you gain compassion for yourself.  "You have to Give it, to Get it".  This little quote applies to literally everything I've encountered from this space. Everything we need to know about the world is out there in the world, not in here with just you, or just me, or just that person over there.  Most of us have inherited the thought to look within for the answers.  There are no answers within... there are no answers inside caves or cages that we contain ourselves in to perpetuate the disconnection.  The only thing within, are things you already know... but nothing more... the new data comes from the real world (hints why even a hermit is a book-a-holic).  Take in that data clearly, and you gain more 10% more knowledge in each occurrence.  Take REAL data, out here in real reality that is not alllllll about you... and that knowledge awakens Emotional Maturity and an array of levels of Self Awareness.

When access to food (if you can even call it that these days) changed and we no longer were required to work with our neighbors to hunt, grow and harvest and insure our survival... that was the start of a huge disconnection.  It separated people, and then from there they thought separation was progress... then came single family "dwellings", and people stopped being with people and learning from people, they stopped being with the world and started just being with themselves.  They embraced their cage as home and said, this is all that there is.... all that I want... and the cage has to be bigger and fancier to make me happy... and it's continued like that... materialism to mask the hole left from the disconnection.  Come on people, it's still a cage!!!  And then this underlying sense of "why I can't connect with people" ran in the shadows of their minds.  The sadness of feeling disconnected, isolated, alone, why me syndrome.  Welcomed into creation Depression, Social Anxiety, Low Self Esteem.  Those happenings collapsed with the internal dialogue resulted in the internal answer to the internal question that "it's them, not me..." and "this is just the way the world is" and "I have no power over what happens to me"...  Again, there are no answers within. 

"If you can distinguish it, you are not it".  That is self-awareness.  To distinguish everything you encounter.. until nothing is left.  And each time you find nothing, create something new there.   Self can distinguish we are not our emotions, feelings, beliefs, intuitions, stories (Identity is the makeup of those things and how we reenact them).... If you can distinguish it, you are not it... and only in resisting that knowledge do we perpetuate identity. 

I'd like to encourage the world to stop resisting being one's self.