What is the point of tragedies? Why must we endure them as humans? Is there a reason beyond the pain and suffering? Is there perhaps a deeper reason? Could it be to allow our souls to see things from a different perspective? To allow us to see things from a way we are just not accustomed to visiting during these busy times? Have we lost our way that we need these tragedies to welcome us back Home? Are we bringing these on ourselves for something bigger to be revealed within ourselves?

Could it be not only to endure anything that is placed before us, but also to learn and grow and see what immense strength we really do have within us? You might ask, why can’t we learn through joy and hope instead? Why must we be placed in such devastation to see our Truth and Light?

I believe right now we are programmed to listen with our ears and not our hearts. We are taught to see things from a lens that does not show us the Truth and our totality. We only see a sliver of what we are truly made of currently. We do not see the beauty within us that is patiently waiting to fully emerge and blossom.

These tragedies are the starting point: they are the lever that is being pushed so high and low, urging us to switch the Light on within us. We need this darkness to understand that the Light is waiting inside one of the corners to shine on the dark, to encompass it within, and to transform it into pure joy and beauty. This is how we learn and see our Truth: through the dark and the Light. Without one, the other does not exist. It is simply the way of opposites, duality, and of life. This is how we grow, fellow brothers and sisters: through seeing pain in one another and gaining compassion for one another and seeing how we are all really the same but just have different stories to tell and learn from one another.

Perhaps we can start listening and opening our hearts to form a bigger family of support and collaborations, rather than competitions and pinning ourselves against each other. We have work to do here – we have to find our Truths now. There are signs all around that this is a serious time of emergency, and I believe together we can heed this signal and listen from our hearts.

Let us use our intuitions and Spirits to guide us into the Light from within the dark. The treasure is in welcoming the dark, not avoiding it. The treasure is in the understanding and embracing of the dark. Let us feel it fully and allow it to take us to depths we have not ventured thus far, so we can emerge with greater understanding of our pain, and simultaneously, learn where our courage lies.

The way is the path we have been pushing away for so long – this is why we are where we are as a community. Let us try something new and break free from the shackles and allow our Light to shine brightly, as our grace-given right and duty.

Of course, none of this easy – this is extremely challenging and painful. But the more we resist it, the more we suffer. If we release and surrender to the inevitable pain and darkness within, the more we allow for this stuck energy to move and create room for the Light to flow through us again.

The way is following the energy and breathing through it all – take notice of where your breath begins and ends. Following the energy takes bravery that you very much have – it guides you to the most fearful places that you try to avoid at all costs. But it also leads you to the most freeing and joyful places if you continue to surrender to the energy even in the depths of the darkest places without letting the fear stop you. Use faith and trust as your companions on this extremely scary venture. Faith and trust that you will not eternally be doomed to this place of darkness; rather you will prevail, move through it, and come out of it forever changed.

We are not meant to be happy all the time, we are not meant to be successful all the time, we are not meant to be the best or richest or smartest all the time – we are meant to be authentic, we are meant to be vulnerable, we are meant to show up in each moment, we are meant to open our hearts and surrender to whatever we find there in the moment, we are meant to simply Be and to understand That is beyond good enough. Acceptance and non-judgment of ourselves as we Are act as our allies on our path of understanding and wholeness.

Tragedy can be our teacher – it is trying to allow us to see our greatness within our resilience, courage, compassion, kindness for one another, love for all, and coming together to help one another in these heart-breaking times. Tragedy is here to free us, not to annihilate us. It is our savior – let us bow and surrender to the pain and find our Light within the storm of our lives. Look within for the door to your Soul. Listen to your voice within to guide you and listen with your heart, not your ears.

We are here, not to survive, but to thrive against all odds. It is time for us to believe again. Believe with the deepest part of us that our story is not finishing – it is just beginning. And see the Light in you waiting to shine so brightly to pave the way and inspire the rest of us to embark on our own journey of pain and freedom. Believe and pray for guidance for your way back Home.

About the Author

Sheila passionately believes in everyone’s ability to open their hearts and heal their hurts in order to discover and share their Light. She follows this passion as a Psycho-Spiritual Therapist and Transpersonal Breathwork Facilitator in which she guides people on their journey of self-discovery. Learn more about her at www.lookingwithintherapy.com

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I’ll keep it simple. Looking at humanity today, our characteristics seem to resemble that of a human adolescent. We are prideful and self opinionated. We believe that we’ve got it all worked out. We place our attention on enjoying our material possessions, with little concern given to the consequence. We’re still quite immature emotionally. We have little patience and prefer brute force once we encounter any signs of resistance.

As adolescents, we require guidance in order to patiently learn about ourselves and the world we live in. To consider the consequences of the actions we take today. In order to lay the foundation of adulthood, we must start to cultivate our spiritual beginnings. To embrace our deeper selves. To discover our inherent right to happiness and purpose.

I believe that in time, our technological advances will become absolutely astounding. We will have achieved the apex of technical perfection. I will not speculate on the details of our accomplishments, but at the pace we’re on now, we will equate to gods of material sophistication. Alas, it will also be our lowest level of spiritual awareness.

But it is also then, that we will begin to realize that all of our material perfection, has yet to satisfy us on a deeper, permanent level. This will be the time that we take the next step toward our evolution as spiritual beings. Science and spirituality will merge like never before. We will make strides into the spiritual evolution of our species. This is my short wish list for the future generations.

Suicidal Wars

Forsake suicidal wars. Nations of the world must learn to live in harmony, mutual understanding and respect. Insisting on being right, does not necessarily bring peace to our world. We must have a balance between political disparity and social responsibility. We owe it to ourselves to support the survival of our species.

Race Hatred

How can any one of us live in the conflict of a divided world? We belong to a single race – the human race. Need proof? Humanity is propelled through vastness of space atop of a tiny ball. Do you really think we are that different from one another? Do you believe that your hopes and your sufferings are unique only to you? The human race will survive only if it learns to embrace its unity.

Religious Sectarianism

Are we not all brothers and sisters in the eyes of God? No matter by what name you refer to your Creator, rejoice in the diversity of beliefs. Drop the boundaries of ignorance and accept everyone as children of God. All holy scriptures teach us the same basic truths. To offer love and compassion, to be morally right in our actions, to give freely of ourselves. Our believes have a lot more in common than apart.

Evils of Materialism

Humanity has made considerable material progress. In many ways however, materialism is a mere substitute for genuine human joys. In fact, we often disconnect ourselves from one another and from our own humanity by substituting it with the ever increasing material consumption. This is not the sustainable path to happiness. We must find a much needed balance between the materialism and humanism.

In Conclusion

I have high hopes for the human race. We have immense potential, and capable of fantastic strides. At our very worst, we are the worst of the known Universe. At our best, we are incomparably loving, generous and compassionate. We lay our own lives on the line to help fellow human beings. The future awaits. Only time will tell if we can live up to our fullest potential.

Live well. Vlad

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Encouragement to a friend offers support during a time of difficulty. In daily practice, it’s a show of your commitment and compassion. There is a saying: We can not choose our family, but we can choose our friends. This is very true. We pick our friends, based on our mutual compatibility and circumstances. Once the friendship is made, it represents a bond between two people who made an emotional commitment to one another.

Among unspoken rules of friendship, there are mutual support and encouragement. A friendship isn’t complete without them. It’s one thing to have fun and enjoy the good times with your friends. But it’s in the time of need, that real friendships are tested. It is then, that the bond is strengthened or weakened. Practice being there for your friends, with the following encouragements.

I’m thinking of you

I can not be with you in person, but I’m with you in spirit at your time of need. We are often left behind, witnessing from afar the troubles that our friends endure. But we don’t have to settle for not being there. We can easily project our support from wherever we are. In fact, with the advances in Internet communication technology, no-one has to truly be left alone anymore. No matter how far they are from us.

I am listening

Words of encouragement can also express your desire to listen. I am here for you, tell me all about it, and I promise to hear you out. To simply listen, without judgement or criticism. Listening is an art, one that is being replaced by too much talk. Too much noise. To be heard, we must now resort to hiring coaches and therapists. So become a good listener to silently support your friends and family.

I love you

Are there any other three words quite as powerful as these in the English language? This, among the noblest of human emotions is capable of moving mountains. Great figures such as Jesus have dedicated and even gave their very lives in the name of love. When you speak these words sincerely, you are saying that there is no greater dedication that can be made to a friend.

Spreading positive energy

Here is a little bit of science. We now understand that everything in the Universe consists of energy. These are also the teachings of the ancient rishis of India. Therefore even when we think, and even more so when we speak out, we are creating and sending out vibrations of energy. It’s important to note, that energy can have positive or negative quality, depending on our intent.

With each word of encouragement offered to a friend, we spread positive energy throughout the Universe. Our very intent to love, help and support, creates a powerful positive vibration. Our world is in dire need of positive energy. It’s enough to turn on the news to witness first hand, all of the negative events that plague us today. Sending out positive emotion counteracts this dark, negative presence.

In Conclusion

As you can see, there are many different ways to offer encouragement. They are simple ways. But every kind deed and intention begins with you, and your desire to help others. To give of yourself just for the sake of giving, without the concern of what’s in it for you. Selfless offering is the greatest offering you can make. So practice giving of yourself unconditionally. Your friends will love you for it.

Live well. Vlad

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Where is love? And why is everyone always searching so frantically for it? From trying to receive it through your kids, to your parents, to your partner, to your imagined fantasies that play on an endless tape in your head, and so on. Sometimes it may seem hopeless that we will never find it.

It seems as if we are always trying to search for this impulse that is secretly hiding within us and always has been. It is as if we are going through this maze in the outside world and never realize that it sometimes leads to a dead end or a vicious cycle that we continuously choose over and over again – in these moments it might be helpful to awaken to the fact that we are on the wrong path, for the love we need to connect to is actually within us.

It is the maze within us that we must embark on, rather than solely focusing on the labyrinth in our outside world (the relationship that isn’t working, the boss who is so mean to us, our best friend who doesn’t understand us, etc). The confusion of the labyrinth outside of us is simply a reflection of our confusion inside of us.

Within us the maze is difficult and challenging at times as well, but this is the path that is truly worth walking on. For it is the one that leads us back to where our home lies, where our love is waiting. It allows us to understand why we do or think certain things and how sometimes our defenses are not helping us anymore but instead are hindering us to feel and accept love.

Remember when we were very young and everything seemed so effortless and easy? It was and you know why? We were always connected to this evolutionary impulse of love – there was no other way of living because we inherently knew we came directly from our Source and realized this truth so clearly.

But as we grew and started listening to everyone around us telling us how to live and what to do to reach ‘success’ and gain happiness, we gut-wrenchingly left our Truth behind for the hope that we would be accepted by these other people around us. We want so desperately to find love with them but at what cost? The cost of losing the love within us?

I believe if we were all connected to that piece within ourselves then we could easily connect through this abundance of love among us all. But when we give it up for the search of love only outside of us, we seem to lose our way and find ourselves lost within and among each other. I’m not saying we cannot find love outside of us – but perhaps the love will be easier to attract if we are already filled with the love within us first.

Sometimes we get married in hopes of finding that one person in the world that will give up everything just to make us happy and fill us up with all that love that we chose to leave behind when we were younger. And when it doesn’t work, we then choose to get mad at them as if it is their fault that we cannot feel the love. We start to doubt if we are even worthy of this love anymore. We think perhaps it was never ours to begin with and we let the outside maze of life convince us that what we have is what we deserve.

But no! We are not to settle for this mediocrity for there is a wonderful and beautiful heaven within us, just waiting to be found. We need to reconnect to our Source as we did when we were children. If we stop now, we lose everything. We lose hope, we lose Light, we lose each other, we lose our humanity, we lose Love. By lose I mean we lose the opportunity to uncovering it all within us – for none of these are truly lost for they are our Truth.

This journey (as most) can only be taken at one step at a time, so find the courage in this moment to take the step you need to begin to unravel the maze within you. Simply follow the impulse you did as a child – follow your inner guide to show you where the open doors are or how to unlock the doors that seem so shut.

The key is in the present moment and accepting – without judgment – whatever you find here: if it is sadness, allow yourself to feel the sadness; if it is anger, allow yourself to express your anger in a healthy way; if it is confusion, allow yourself to accept the confusion rather than immediately wanting to get rid of it and wanting clarity instead; if it is joy, allow yourself to feel the joy running through you without trying to grasp it forever or focusing on the fear of losing it, and so on. Follow your energy to discover your authenticity and freedom in the moment. Arrive to the Now and allow your Self to guide you to your immutable Truth: Love.

About the Author

Sheila passionately believes in everyone’s ability to open their hearts and heal their hurts in order to discover and share their Light. She follows this passion as a psycho-spiritual therapist and wishes to help people on their journey of self-discovery. Learn more about her at www.lookingwithintherapy.com

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The explanation to our crisis is deeply rooted in human nature. It begins with our society’s propagation of the “me and mine” way of thinking. We are a selfish society focusing on gaining and retaining our material possessions, holding on to what we consider to be ours. This approach is wreaking havoc on us, both as individuals as well as on the global level.

Today, we are beginning to understand, that money is a form of energy. Amassing and hoarding wealth, restricts the free flow of this energy. Energy that is meant to circulate and be exchanged. This energy is a conscious force. The more it is exerted, the more powerful it becomes. It is the power of giving.

Unfortunately, most of us don’t allow this natural process to occur to its full potential. Certainly, the money is allowed to circulate to some extent. In such venues as the stock market and other investment vehicles. Usually however all moneys are offered conditionally, in hopes of receiving direct gain. We are far removed from the proverb: freely we have received freely give.

In addition to material wealth, let’s examine some of the other forms of energy that should be exchanged. These are love, kindness and self giving. These things are free, and do not cost anything. The benefit of offering these energies to others is substantial.

What is important to consider here is that when we offer to others, when we give of ourselves, an exchange of energy occurs. It is a universal principle. In this exchange, the giver receives back in return. It may not come back from the same source or in the same form, but it is assured to happen.

This kind of giving should not be restricted to just close friends or family members. It is for the whole world to use, for strangers and even for those whom we may not particularly like. The flow of energy is the supreme motivator. Once you begin to give, to offer yourself, you will understand the beauty of this process.

It is not a simple thing to do. To those of us who have been conditioned by life to restrict their wealth from circulating, the first steps will be tough. But the restriction that we imposed on ourselves, is costing us dearly today. Learn to freely offer your wealth, together with your love, and even with yourself.

Once we as a society learn to give, we will be at the dawn of a new age when the universal principles of energy exchange are practiced and encouraged. Beginning with the individual, and all the way to the global economy, will we begin to reap the rewards that can only come from sharing.

In Conclusion

To summarize my point, don’t be afraid to give freely. If only the countries of the world learned to offer each other their wealth, their love and themselves unconditionally. Our mutual economic condition would greatly improve. Followed closely by the balance in the global political arena.

Live well. Vlad

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Last night, tragedy struck Aurora, Colorado, as a lone gunman entered a theater twenty minutes into the midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises and opened fire onto an unsuspecting crowd. Like the rest of the nation, I woke to the disturbing news and was left with the residual feeling of nausea in the pit of my stomach. “All they wanted to do was see a f***ing movie,” was all I could think and henceforth began imagining what I would have done in the same scenario—duck underneath the seats, covering my loved ones as best as I could; wait behind a seat until he passed in order to sneak up and disarm the attacker; call the police; or maybe even try and reason with the man. At that point, however, any of the actions I would have taken would have been too little too late.

What drives a man to the point of massacre for massacre’s sake? What engulfs one’s mind to the point where a human being becomes a terrible idea? Just when does a child grow into an adult, capable of killing another, free of any remorse afterward?

I—as I’m sure we all feel—wish to be a hero. We indulge ourselves with the legends of one man’s past actions, calling them heroic or inspiring, when in fact that man simply acted because he saw no other choice—crashing a plane into a field rather than the Pentagon; taking the bullet for a brother; and leading a nation into a new era of unity regardless of the danger ensuing therein. These actions—though inspiring, legendary, and much deserved for their praise—are actions of one last measure when all of the problems preceding the current predicament have been ignored.

If you want to stop a man from pulling the trigger, you’ll have to go back years before when he was a child, still moldable and salvageable as a human being. You’ll have to show that child love and compassion and understand that he too suffers greatly. And though there are some people who have psychological disorders making them more prone to commit senseless acts of violence, it does not give us the excuse of abandoning them in their darkest moments. Instead of wishing for swift vengeance to overcome our “enemies,” we should rather wish for our enemies to feel love, not hatred. After all, hatred is nothing more than love disappointed.

If you wish to be a hero, don’t travel the world fighting petty thieves nor use your life savings to build an armory for your vigilantism. Instead, offer your sympathy to another living thing. Offer your love to those others that are hated. Offer your apologies to those you have wronged. Offer all around you—human and all else—your utmost compassion. Perhaps you will have stopped a massacre from occurring ten years from now with one simple act of love, showing a hurt child that he is indeed important and beautiful, no matter what the others may jokingly say.

Sure, this task sounds easy, but it is in fact the hardest thing for humanity to do. If it weren’t, we would not have the need for war, weapons, or violence. Like many other traits we have outgrown through evolution, I believe malevolence still remains to be sifted out of humanity’s genome. And that is why this article is so important today as we all reflect and are reminded of the senseless violence that plagues our world with its horror. Genocide, warfare, and random acts of violence seem as though they are here to stay forever.

But, does being heroic not mean upsetting the status quo? Does being heroic not mean sacrificing certain elements of your life for the greater good? To be a hero means we must be more than vengeful or justifying. To be a hero means you must endure the worst of times, leading others behind you to a brighter future. To be a hero means to love not hate, to be tranquil not angry, and to be patient with others around you.

My heart goes out to the victims of the shooting in Colorado, but it also goes out to the man capable of shooting random people at point-blank. Could you imagine living a life such as his, deprived of the ability to love and feel for others as we do? What horror in which he must constantly live, and what horror he must cause therein.

I am not advocating anything here besides peace and understanding. I am not blaming anybody for the event for there is no one person to blame. A man having lived a painful enough life to kill and not feel remorse is a man to feel sympathy for just as much as one would feel sympathy for his victims. All I’m asking you, the reader, is to challenge yourself every day to trust others, to love others, and to feel compassion for others—the more we trust and love, the more others will trust and love us in return. And should you pay the ultimate price for your good deeds, so be it. These things are simply out of our hands, but that does not give us reason to act without compassion and peaceful reason.

I’ll be the first to say that I have wronged many people throughout my life, whether in petty instances or greater. I have caused heartbreak and pain, I have shouted in uncontrollable rage, and I have ignored, countless times, others who have needed my help. I have been selfish time and time again, and for that I am unfathomably sorry. I am sorry to have made fun of my own friends and ignored those without anyone to talk to; I am sorry to have judged others in any capacity; I am sorry to have caused emotional pain; I am sorry for not helping every person I see that needs help in any capacity. So much as this letter may be a reminder for humanity to be heroic every day of our lives, it is also serves as a reminder for humanity to remember our humility and to say when you have wronged another.

It is my hope this article inspires some sort of good and compassion in those who read it as well as a sense of forgiveness in those whom I have wronged in the past. To be a hero means to be more than you think you are today—for yourself, for others, and for those you do not consider your “friends.”

So now I ask that you share your thoughts and feelings below on the matters I’ve discussed. Who is your hero? How can you help heal the wounds in the world? What can you offer to another today?

About the Author

Chad Davis is an aspiring writer of non-fiction, fiction, and screenplays. More than anything, Chad is an ever-learning and growing human being. You can see more of his work at his own blogsite: ChadleyDavis.blogspot.com.

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I have a lot of friends because I love to meet new people. It’s the greatest part about living in any major city, there are always new people to stumble across. For the most part I love having lots of friends, but because I have so many it’s hard to keep up with all of them and I find my schedule booked weeks in advance for coffee, drinks, dinner, shows etc.

An active flaw in my personality is a lack of patience. I don’t like to be late, usually because I have things planned back to back, but also because I have a pretty antsy personality and I don’t like waiting for other people. My friend Ryan tells me all the time that I need to just chill out. So the other day I was sitting at a bar alone, waiting for my friend Amy to arrive and I could feel the itch–I needed to optimize my time.

Instantly I whipped out my phone and started checking my e-mails, text messages, twitter, facebook etc. Who have I not responded to yet that I need to reply to? After going through the usual motions and replying to some recent e-mails I put my phone down and started to look around.

The place was nice, cozy even, with vibrant chatter happening all around me. Because of the social atmosphere I felt strange to be sitting alone and not doing anything. But I had nothing to do and flipping through my phone for no good reason seemed stupid so I decided to just be uncomfortable. Then a funny thing happened…I started reveling in the time alone. It was just snippets of time 5 minutes here or 15 minutes there, but I find it really refreshing.

I’ve never meditated before, but I imagine that the quiet is what draws people in and having acquiesced some semblance of it, I really enjoy it. This surprised me because up until now I loved loud places. So what sparked the change?

I think I used to equate silence with being alone and at the time I didn’t have enough confidence to really traverse the world by myself. My jam packed schedule was purposefully designed that way because I hadn’t mastered the art of doing nothing. Well, to be quite frank, I thought it was a load of crap.

A year ago, when I moved to Houston, I had every intent to change my ways. I wasn’t going to make a lot of friends because I wanted to focus on my book–and I did. In 3 short months I had written over 300 pages and had a complete first draft of my novel. As a token of my accomplishment I gave myself the day off.

I had no plans, no itinerary, and no intention to see anyone. Want to know what I did? I drove to a book store, bought a book, found a nice patch of grass at Hermann Park and spent the entire day either reading or starring up at the sky lost in my own thoughts.

It felt great. I felt great. Maybe it’s something that just comes with age, but I really appreciated and enjoyed just hanging out with myself. I think often times we confuse being alone as being lonely. But in reality, I think those who are content with being alone tend to be the most happy. Happiness that comes from within has a very strong foundation.

“Happiness is a state of mind.” — I’ve heard that phrase many times, but no one really talks about how to get to that state of mind. More importantly, I think people go about finding it in all the wrong ways by filling their days with activities that only stay the problem and not necessarily fix it.

The happiest people I know are the ones to meditate on a daily basis. They are grounded and content and everything that happens in life is simply taken in stride. It’s not that their lives aren’t complicated or that really bad things don’t happen to them. But they are better equipped to handle those things because they’ve spent enough time on themselves that problems become less emotional.

So… take a day off and do nothing but spend it with yourself. Go to a spa (or use the gym’s sauna and Jacuzzi), read a book outside, take a stroll through Central Park…whatever. Give yourself some time with you because I think you’ll be surprised at how much you enjoy your own company.

About the Author

Jamie Hoang is a Los Angeles based writer, designer, world traveler, tea drinker and lover of the great outdoors. A firm believer in trying everything at least once, she’s always learning. Her work can be found at heyjamie.com or tweeting as @heyjamie

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In my experience, if you start talking to people about how to meditate, there will be at least one naysayer who will crop up to tell you that you are doing it all wrong.

I experienced this a few years ago, when I was leading a retreat based on the theme of presence. My perspective was that while formal meditation was great, it wasn’t for everyone, and this retreat was about exploring alternatives to formal meditation that would still get people taking time to get present to their lives.

A prominent Zen Buddhist saw my retreat offering and blogged about it, blasting what I’d written without directly naming me, but paraphrasing so closely that people were emailing me about it to ask if I’d seen her blog posts.

We live in a culture that encourages us to be steadfast in the face of these things, to simply not care, but I don’t think that that’s the healthy response. I cared.

I didn’t care so much from the perspective that I thought she was right, as much as I cared from the perspective that I was simply hurt that another human being had gone out of their way to be unkind, to actually put time and effort into a blog post that would make me wrong, and then encourage their commenters to chime in with how wrong I was, too.

Despite the backlash of this scenario, I have remained steadfastly committed to an idea:

that true meditation is about presence, and that presence does not always need to look like sitting on a zafu with knees angled just-so, hands in the proper mudra, eyes at the “correct” gaze.

Meditation & Discipline

I don’t say any of this from a place of not knowing what in the world I’m talking about. For several years, I seriously studied Zen Buddhism. I read every book I could get my hands on, took meditation retreats, and visited a nearby sangha every Sunday for services. (I continue to study, but wouldn’t say that I’m quite so “serious” about it, now, as you’ll see).

What I have come to understand about sitting on the zafu, hands just-so, focus entirely on the breath (or the pauses between inhale/exhale, more accurately) is that these “rules” create a kind of safety, a kind of protection. For this, I appreciate them.

What are they protection from? Monkey mind. Without them, you might be apt to constantly shift and shuffle, never actually getting to a place where you can settle deeply into the present. To have a “rule” about how to sit or place your hands is a form of putting a boundary on a practice that helps to keep your aim steady, your practice focused.

Where they become limiting is when they become the basis for determining that you are “good” or “bad” because you have done it “right” or “wrong.”

I’ve met many a person who meditates who didn’t leave me with a sense of being loved and cared for (see example, above: the blogging Zen Buddhist who used her blog to put someone else down, and encouraged others to join in).

I’ve met many a person who didn’t meditate in the strictest way, who left me feeling utterly held, seen, and connected.

Hitting the Brakes, Suddenly

The other limitation? This sort of formal meditation just isn’t for everyone. I’ve met so many people who have told me that they “wished” they could meditate, but that they just couldn’t get themselves to do it. Sitting on a cushion in silence was more than they could bear.

This doesn’t surprise me. Look at the culture we’re in–with media and information coming at us in such a fast-paced way.

Perhaps it’s too much to expect someone to walk off the street, hear the ‘rules’ of meditation, and then sit down and do it. Perhaps that’s a bit like hitting the brakes on a car, rather suddenly.

Some of us might need an in-between space.

Having studied various forms of meditation and seen firsthand the enormous benefits, it seems to me that we can get down to brass tacks and pragmatics with this–we could release the judgment about “how” someone meditates and instead, celebrate the fact that they are choosing to engage in any kind of presence practice, at all.

What It Could Look Like

• Meditation could look like what I call a “stillness practice.”
• It could look like taking time each day to sit quietly and gaze at the room around you.
• It could look like lighting a candle at night and watching the flickering flame.
• It could look like a moving practice, dancing furiously to music that’s played really loudly, being completely and totally present and focused with the movement.
• It could look like choosing to breathe deeply when a family member is being accusatory.
• It could look like running on a trail in the early morning, no sound except nature and the light patter of left-right, left-right from your feet.

Down to Brass Tacks

I’m a Midwesterner, transplanted to California, who has never entirely escaped the roots of her “Give it to me straight” conditioning.

I can talk breathing and mantras and presence, and the pragmatic Midwesterner in me wants to get down to brass tacks–how exactly is this going to have a practical application to one’s life?

That’s the basis from which I make ‘controversial’ statements about not needing to follow a dogmatic approach to meditation.

I’m just excited when anyone looks at their life and sees clearly the benefits of getting present to it, in service to living in a more fully alive way.

How to Start

If you’ve always longed to start your own meditation practice, but have faced resistance, then perhaps calling it a “stillness practice” would be one place to start.

After that? If the resistance has been about doing something daily, every day, for a prescribed amount of time, consider: what if you started with three times a week? Choose a Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for your very own “stillness practice.”

Put that on the calendar for this upcoming week–and then–only commit for a week. Then your monkey mind needn’t screech at you with how you’ll “have to” do this “always” for the rest of your life.

When you have your “stillness practice,” experiment.

How I started was with lighting a candle each night after everything had quieted down, and watching the flames flicker on the wall while listening to soothing instrumental music. Instead of getting present to the breath, I got present to just watching the shadows on the wall.

Maybe that won’t work for you. I heard of a meditation teacher who had his students do a crying meditation (basically, they’d think of the saddest things possible and try to cry for the duration of the period), followed by a laughing meditation (laughing, or forcing yourself to, for the duration of the period), followed finally by pure silence.

After being told about this, the leader of our workshop had us actually do it–30 minutes with each. The silence in the room when we got to the sitting part was the deepest silence I’d ever “heard,” if one can say that about silence.

So–perhaps what you need before you can get to the silence is to let yourself release anger, sadness, laughter, joy.

Make that your meditation, connecting fully to what you’re doing in that moment.

Trust in People

It’s important that we have a fundamental trust in people, in their basic goodness, and in their desires to change their lives. We can turn inside-out the notion that the rules must be there for everyone, all of the time, and instead practice the courage of trusting that at a very basic level, people want to be well.

People want to thrive in their lives.

People just don’t always feel they’re capable of doing so.

If we create the conditions where people feel they’re capable, it’s my courageous perspective (courageous because it’s vulnerable to trust others) that they will choose what will evolve their souls.

In my case, the informal “stillness practices” have given way over the years to the place where I originally started, the place that I initially rejected: on the cushion, hands held just-so, focus on the breath, nothing but a blank wall in front of me.

If you’ve always wanted to try out meditation on a regular basis, but have felt forever stymied, the invitation is here to trust that instinct that you’ve had to try. That instinct is the most important thing, right now.

Then trust that if you simply follow your inclinations to create stillness in your life, this is something that you can do–and you aren’t bad for setting it up in your own way.

I bow in deep gassho to you as you contemplate what lies before you.

About the Author

Kate Swoboda is a Life Coach, speaker and writer who helps clients to lead unconventional and revolutionary lives through practicing courage. She’s the author of The Courageous Living Guide, and creator of the Courageous Play and Create Stillness retreats–as well as The Coaching Blueprint, a resource just for Life Coaches. Learn more at http://www.yourcourageouslife.com, sign up for her free newsletter, or follow her on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/YourCourageousLife.

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Now in my late forties, I am not exactly sure what “made it” means. I recently moved to a new town, I am looking for a job to compliment my online income, and I’m writing an ebook. Just goes to show you, it’s never too late for new beginnings.

For those of you whose lives are full of new beginnings, let me tell you that this is a good thing. It means you’re still alive. And that you’ve got the opportunity to follow your dreams and goals no matter what your chronological age may be.

To make the most of my new beginnings, I try not to take myself too seriously, and keep my focus on the following principles.

Understand why

The various challenges that are offered us, and the crossroads that we face, are there to either correct us on our journey, or to teach us a lesson or two about our self. It is our duty to attempt to understand, and learn from the underlying factors that brought us to this point.

We can not go back and correct some of our mistakes, but we can certainly grow and evolve as we go forward. In a way, life is all about choices, and repercussions to those choices made. A cause and effect. Each choice, a new opportunity to get it right.

Enjoy the new beginning

You might as well enjoy the journey that’s in front of you. You may be surprised to know that your outlook can dictate much of your experience. If you happen to enjoy what you’re doing, this is great. But if you don’t, by changing your attitude, you will actually enhance the whole nature of your experience. Your life will be filled with more happiness and satisfaction.

By enjoying your journey, you will de-stress and focus yourself so that all of your decisions become the best under the circumstances. And if you can’t enjoy this journey for some reason, it’s your job to figure out why. To analyze what you’re doing right or wrong. That’s part of the the correction process.

Embrace the big picture

As I mentioned earlier, every moment is a new beginning. Each moment is born and dies. Blink your eyes. The moment had just passed, and it will never come back again. It’s been replaced by a chain of ever new moments strung together by our consciousness.

From this perspective, we can see that we are reborn over and over again with each new moment. Our life is no longer confined to a single beginning and end, but rather consists of myriad of tiny lifetimes. It’s just the nature of the Universe, so we might as well align ourselves with it.

Explore your dreams

Whether you’re 10 or 100 years old, you are here to follow your unique life’s purpose. You may be aware of your purpose at birth like Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha and Jesus, or you may need a lifetime to discover it. It doesn’t really matter. But, rest assured, you are not here by mistake. Trust your intuition to guide you on, and don’t stop until your destiny is in sight.

After all, what’s the alternative? Living out a mediocre existence, accepting life spoonfed to you without ever wondering if there is any more to it? I would rather go on from one new beginning to the next, instead of stagnating in one spot, hoping to never have to get out of my shell to explore all the beauty and mystery that is my life.

In Conclusion

So what’s next? Just life. Just living in each moment because that’s all we’ve got. Personally I doubt if I will ever settle down or stop my exploration. I wouldn’t want to anymore. Because as long as I’m alive, there will always be a new sunrise to admire, a new life mystery to explore, and a new beginning to observe.

Live well. Vlad

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When I was a kid I wanted to be a veterinarian, just like my uncle. I had always loved animals of all different kinds, and so the decision seemed to fit. After a few years of concentrating myself intensely on one day becoming a veterinarian—all before the age of 12, no less—I realized I no longer wished to become one. It was then I decided I wanted to become an architect—after all, drawing was always one of my fortes, so the awe I felt while looking at Chicago sky scrapers as a kid naturally led me to designing buildings with a mere pencil and paper.

The thought of it was thrilling to me, to have my name printed onto the side of the world’s next most interesting and new age office building or home, and so once again I focused my energies on honing my drawing skills and learning as much math as a young adolescent could bear. Once I reached the summer before my senior year in high school, I had taken advanced math courses up to Calculus II and was all set to go on my first hands-on experience with architecture at a program sponsored by none other than Notre Dame’s School of Architecture—needless to say, I was very excited.

That excitement lasted all of a week. Once I had come to understand the grueling pain of the architecture student’s daily grind and the unwillingness of professors to teach, let alone examine, the work of contemporary wonders such as Frank Lloyd Wright, I began to hate the idea of architecture school because of the lack of creativity an architect is allowed to have—whether as newly hired lacky working for a well-known partnership or a student for a prestigious university, you’re pretty much guaranteed to be ignored for your out-of-the-box ideas until you’ve created the same boring stuff everybody told you to design in the first place.

So, I no longer was interested in architecture simply because I didn’t want to play the game one must end up playing just to design one or two buildings the way you want them to be designed—in other words, it wasn’t a great way to express the creativity that had driven my interest in architecture in the first place. Maybe I was too impatient and unwilling to give it a try, but it didn’t matter to me then. I became disillusioned and so walked away from becoming an architect.

That’s about the time I went to college (to a much less prestigious university than Notre Dame) and started deeply exploring what I wanted to do with my creative energies. In the first two years of undergrad, I traversed the realm of video game production only to find the nightmares therein. Then, I switched gears and focused on film and video production, finding somewhat of a happy home in post-production and screenwriting. But still, I couldn’t help feeling that same banal resentment when I interned at a post-house in LA.

And then one day while standing atop the Hollywood Hills (where all the rich folk live and covet everybody else’s Lamborghini or decked-out Prius), I had an epiphany. As I stood there next to a chain-link fence overlooking dozens of what I could only begin to fathom to be hundreds upon hundreds of million dollar homes and the grayed, less-than-impressive LA cityscape, I realized that I couldn’t care less about having a home in the Hollywood Hills. I couldn’t care less if my future car ever acquired one or more dents or scratches in its unimportant, metallic surface. I couldn’t care less if my name was ever as recognizable as, say, Robert Downey Jr’s.

I only cared, as I always have cared, about one thing: expressing who I am.

After realizing this, I returned home after another month or so working in LA, finished up my last year in college studying things like Buddhahood, sustainability, and more screenwriting, and then I graduated, all the while searching for any post-production job to which I could apply. I heard back from maybe ten places out of forty, all of which replied, “No, thanks.” And so here I am today.

Now before you start feeling too down on either yourself or me, I never said I was unhappy. Sarcastic, maybe, but I am very happy. After all of my failures and disillusionments with trying to find a career, I realized something entirely more important when my friend said to me, “What’s a job anyway other than an expression of who you are?”

That’s when I realized that I had been trying to tell this to myself all along. Why break my back over things that ultimately do not express my passions? Why become anything that you truly don’t care about instead of something already love? And so, I began writing. A lot. And I haven’t stopped since.

Perhaps that’s a sign that I’m finally doing something that I feel inspired to do, that I can do everyday, and that expresses my feelings, thoughts, and emotions as freely as they come and go. After years of focusing so intensely on one skillset after another, I have finally learned to let go of constantly wanting to be something or somebody else—I’ve learned to instead be more in touch with my passions and allow them to freely come and go as a writer, an editor, an artist, a philosopher, a friend, an uncle.

All of these roles are nothing more than that, a role. When I start to feel that my role defines me, all I must do is remind myself that without me the role is dead. Without the expression of myself, the role is meaningless.

Is that to say no job is satisfying for me? No, of course not. The job is no longer the end game; in fact, the job is no longer a “job” but rather an expression of something that comes from deep within. For instance, right now I make small income working as a tele-researcher, and although it may sound incredibly thrilling, it can drag on after the fourth hour on the clock.

However, I enjoy it. Why? Because I get to talk to people all day! I love talking to people, albeit shortly and mostly on script, but that’s ok. And that’s the point, to see it as ok, to see the “job” as an opportunity to express who you are. That’s why I write, draw, edit, and bother people on the phone. It doesn’t matter if you’re Robert Downey Jr or the average Joe—you deserve to be you no matter what the setting is.

So don’t beat yourself up if you’re not the best drummer, accountant, or doctor—simply remind yourself that your job is not you, you are expressing yourself through your job—own it, be it, and express who you are the way you truly see fit.

About the Author

Chad Davis is an aspiring writer of non-fiction, fiction, and screenplays. More than anything, Chad is an ever-learning and growing human being. You can see more of his work at his own blogsite: ChadleyDavis.blogspot.com.

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