04.27.07
Posted in Make Your Life Easier, Paths to Bliss
at 10:53 am
I’ve been reading a new book by Byron Katie called A Thousand Names for Joy: Living in Harmony With the Way Things Are. It’s an amazing book about coming to know and accept what is in the present moment. Reading it has been challenging for me–she’s responding to the Tao Te Ching and her experience of life is so foreign to me that each chapter takes a while to sink in. 
I read a little bit, and then I wait a day or two and notice that what it said is popping into my brain in various situations. Then I know that I need to continue. I love that this book came into my life now because it’s all about a way to change our stories (and if you’ve read even half of the posts I’ve made on this blog since January, you know how much I love the idea of changing our stories!)
The power of her book comes from a process of questioning that she calls The Work or inquiry. Through this process, we pick out thoughts (i.e. stories) that cause us stress or pain and take a look at these thoughts one by one to investigate if what we’ve been telling ourselves is really true. If you approach this process with an open heart and really go inside yourself to answer the questions as fully as you can, it is extremely powerful work. I invite you to go read about this process on her website and then watch the videos (in the right hand sidebar) to see it in action so you have a better understanding of how to approach the inquiry process. I wasn’t really sure until I saw those videos and then it just blew me away.
I find myself thinking, “Is that true?” naturally when thoughts pop into my head since I began reading her book and thinking about this process. Just that moment of questioning is powerful. It has made me a more conscious and deliberate person. This inquiry fits in so nicely with the questions I posed at the end of my last post. If you read those questions and are having a hard time investigating them, this may be a good way for you to get at them.
Registered members of the Uncover Your Bliss Community can discuss this book and/or The Work here.
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04.17.07
Posted in Make Your Life Easier, Website News
at 2:28 pm
I’ve added a customized Google start page to the Uncover Your Bliss website.
Just go to http://google.uncoveryourbliss.com .
The best thing about the customized start page is that it includes the RSS feeds for this blog and for the community, as well as the google calendar I’ve set up for the website. If you prefer to read the feeds in your own RSS reader here are the links to the feeds:
http://www.uncoveryourbliss.com/blog/feed
http://www.uncoveryourbliss.com/community/rss.php
(Please note: You have to be a registered user of the community to read posts within most threads.)
Enjoy!
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01.24.07
Posted in Make Your Life Easier, Paths to Bliss
at 2:51 pm
If you’re like me and searching for paths to bliss, you’ve probably read a lot of books, surfed a lot of websites, and watched a lot of videos looking for tips on how to make your life better. Over the past six months in particular I have been a fiend for suggestions about how the world works and how to get what I want. I want to know how to tap into unlimited energy, I want to know how to connect with my body and my spirituality, I want to know how to keep in touch with signs and messages. All of that is great–and a good way to get energy moving in the right direction.
I’ve noticed, though, that my enthusiasm comes and goes in cycles for me. I’m riding high for a little while and grooving along really feeling the possibilities, and then I feel a little stuck again and have to push myself to get in the groove again. Life interferes with my quest for a better life. I then realized that a critical step on the road to happiness is making our lives as easy on us as possible. I will be sharing some tips for easier living periodically on this blog and hope you’ll share some ideas as well as the inspiration strikes you.
In Part 1, I’m going to talk about rethinking some assumptions you may have about what you can and can’t do. Future installments will include better living through technology, tips for easy organizing, giving yourself a break by taking shortcuts, the importance of taking timeouts, and resources that will help you brainstorm on how to streamline your life.
Reinventing What You Can Do
We all have stories we tell ourselves about what we can and can’t do. My prototypical limitation story was that I have a terrible sense of direction and can’t find my way around. This story started out reasonably enough: I do have a horrible sense of direction. I made it worse by believing my sense of direction controlled my ability to get where I needed to go easily. I was so used to my “I always get lost” story that I didn’t notice when it wasn’t actually true. I was letting myself get lost and remain apprehensive when I had to go somewhere new by reinforcing the story that getting lost was inevitable. Once I changed my attitude and let my internet directions and cell phone be my safety net, I realized I was pretty good at getting around when I paid attention. Of course, that didn’t stop me from buying a GPS for my car, but I see it as a way to make my life easier not as a way to keep myself from screwing up because I can’t get anywhere without getting lost.
Read the rest of this entry »
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