05.21.07
Posted in Paths to Bliss, Quick Tricks
at 11:39 am
It’s spring and that means it’s time to clean house! Cleaning your physical house is a great opportunity to clean your mental and spiritual houses too.
Spring is a time for clearing and renewal. People naturally gravitate towards mentally and physically clearing away the old and affirming the good because the earth is in a cycle of renewal and rebirth as well. What can you bless and let go of in your life right now? Is it that foot high stack of catalogs? Is it an old story about the way you used to be? What can you bless and affirm in your life right now? What brings you joy? What’s going right? (Hint: The answer is never “nothing.”)
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05.18.07
Posted in Paths to Bliss, Quick Tricks, Website News
at 7:46 am
I’ve had fun playing around with creating an Uncover Your Bliss gadget for your personalized Google homepage. I call it the Uncover Your Bliss Quick Trick for Happiness gadget (sound familiar??) I will be updating the gadget several times a week with resources, tricks, and messages of love and happiness. Here’s what’s on the gadget right now:
You cannot give from an empty cup. Fill your own cup today by making sure you’ve seen to your own needs before worrying about the needs of others.
What have you done today to take care of yourself first? What could you do in the next hour that would bring you some joy? If you have to say no to someone to do it, do it anyway!
If you would like to add this gadget to your google homepage, click here.
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05.17.07
Posted in Paths to Bliss, Resources
at 4:11 pm
I’ve recently been made aware of a wonderful resource for those of you who want to transition into a meaningful and fulfilling career. Three recent college grads toured the country last summer interviewing people who are passionate about their careers, and they are beginning another tour this July.
From their site:
Pursue the Passion addresses this issue by interviewing people who are propelled by a love for their work. From these interviews, our mission is to assist aspiring individuals to find work they can be passionate about by producing resources that help direct and guide their pursuit.
…
We are three recent college graduates who dreamed during our years of study that when we finished our education, we would find jobs or industries where we would feel a passion for our work. Our biggest obstacle was that WE DID NOT KNOW WHAT WAS REALLY OUT THERE. We knew theory. We knew vocabulary. And though we were ahead of many others who had never had any exposure to business in school, we shared a giant deficit- we did not know what the choices were, and what was really POSSIBLE.
So just days after graduation, the three of us took off on a journey across the country in a giant bus to explore career possibilities, and documented the trip on this website. We interviewed over seventy-five inspiring leaders and enthused employees about their paths to a passionate career. We learned about what others were passionate about, and their infectious enthusiasm helped us identify our own passions.
Their interview pages are full of really inspiring stories about people who took risks to pursue their dreams. It’s a great source of inspiration for anyone facing major life transitions. I personally find the story of the founders of this site inspiring too. When I graduated with my undergraduate degree I freaked out and spent a lot of time running around like a deranged chicken or a fez-wearing monkey on crack–these guys decided to investigate what it meant to have a meaningful career and share that information with others.
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05.16.07
Posted in Law of Attraction, Manifestation, Paths to Bliss
at 7:50 am
I’ve been running into a lot of good posts about striving to reach a state of allowing–a place where you’re happy where you are and look towards what’s coming with anticipation. For me that has been the most challenging part of the Law of Attraction. I’m great at wanting things, but balancing contentment with wanting more has often alluded me. I wrote a long comment in response to this post about raising my vibrational state and I thought I would reproduce it here:
The “allowing†part has always been the most challenging part of the process for me. There is this contradiction between being happy with now while avoiding thinking about the reality of the things I want to change. And how do I think of a better thought about something that stresses me out?
There are a couple of things I’ve found that help me come to terms with the idea of reaching a state of contentment while trying to feel better. First I work on the contentment part: I meditate on the idea that things are the way they are for a reason and I pair it with the idea that the Universe loves me and wants me to be happy so nothing in my life is here to harm me. Rather, everything is here to help me grow and become a more complete person.
Read the rest of this entry »
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05.15.07
Posted in Paths to Bliss
at 8:37 am
How many things do you put off in your life because the expectations of how/who/when aren’t meshing with your life? You would do X, but you’re “supposed” to do X in the morning and there’s no way you could do it then. 
You’d love to do Y, but not all the steps make sense for you personally so you write off the whole venture. (And by you, I of course mean us.) This mindset is especially prevalent for those of us who are perfectionists, but I’d wager that it challenges most people.
Karen, over at Live the Power, wrote a post about how she overcame her own expectations to begin meditating:
As it turns out the only thing really stopping me were the limitations in my own mind. I needed to drop my arbitrary “rules†and rather than think about how difficult it was I needed to think about how it could be done.
So I considered my “vision†and my “rulesâ€. Did I want to meditate or did I want it to be perfect? I wanted to meditate. So I dropped the rules about doing it in the morning. That won’t work at my house. I dropped the time limit, an hour is wonderful but 15 minutes will suffice. Basically I dropped all of my arbitrary rules about how it should be done and I just started doing it in a way that worked. Now the kids go to bed, I put on my headphones (it helped me to have a CD to listen to) and I meditate.
I thought this was a great reminder about how to get out of our own way. I’ve been saying this a lot recently to people I have conversations with: “I’m learning how to get out of my own way.” I’m learning to let go of the assumptions that keep me from doing what I want to do. I’m learning to spot the excuses I’m using to block change. Sometimes I hang onto those excuses until I’m ready to move on, but I’m accepting responsibility for holding on rather than placing it on the excuses.
Now it’s your turn:
- Think about something you’ve been trying to work up to do for a while because you know it will ultimately make you happier and/or make your life easier.
- Indulge in all the reasons why you haven’t been able to get to it. Go into a lot of detail. What logistical problems surround this activity? What priorities stand in your way of going after it? Are there any people standing in the way of what you want to do (either blatantly or inside your head?) What emotions come up when you think about this activity?
- Investigate how many of those obstacles are actually true. Do you need to change your story?
- Now imagine that you can find alternative times, procedures, and people to do this activity with.
- There is no step five. You can actually find and work with those alternatives whenever you’re ready.
Post about something you’re trying to release expectations and resistance about doing at the online community here.
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05.14.07
Posted in Paths to Bliss, Resources
at 10:30 am
I’ve discovered a lovely website (thanks to Cardin Routh over at OptimistLab.com) called high Vibe it. It is a wonderful Web 2.0 site like Digg.com that gives power to users to promote positive and joyful posts/articles/stories to the front page. From the About page:
((( high Vibe it ))) is a place to come to share high vibrations. This site is being made with love and an Open mind. It runs on Open source technology. The site itself is Open to become whatever its Users make it.
The intentions at work here are for the Users of this site to share links to items they come across on the web that bring Joy and positive energy. This is a place to find, submit, and Vibe news stories and other items that resonate with You at a high level.
If most of the mainstream media is adept at mining and profiting from our fears and insecurities, it’s about time we turn the tables. It is my belief that high Vibe it will contribute to slowly turning the tide by empowering You to vibe positive stories.
Good stuff!
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Posted in Make Your Life Easier, Paths to Bliss
at 7:57 am
Things have been quiet around here for the past week or so and that’s because I had to give myself permission to take a breather from some things in my life so I could think and stew and mull and digest everything that has been happening to me. During the past week I was observing myself and thinking about things that are important to me. It was interesting for me to watch the baggage that surrounded the idea that I needed to 
take a break from all the things that were going on in my life. I had periods of guilt, of feeling lazy, of fear that I was missing out on something. The reality was that I needed a break so I had a chance to emotionally and spiritually catch up with the changes in my life.
I think it’s interesting that I could work myself into the ground–forsaking family and friends and the little things in my life that bring me joy and I would not feel the same kind of emotional baggage that came along with the time I spent reconnecting with myself, my friends, and my family. I began to wonder why I felt like I had to produce something to be truly productive. Oh look. Produce and Productive are practically the same word. Apparently this baggage is hard wired into the language!
Part of honoring ourselves as whole beings is honoring the downtime as much as the times when we’re actively producing. That means we seek fulfillment in the times we have something to show for our efforts and the times we are engaging in reflection and relaxation. I’ve always been the type of person who needs reflection time after bursts of activity, I’ve just never embraced that side of myself without feeling like I was checking out from what I was supposed to be doing. What I forgot is that I’m “supposed” to be living my life and seeking joy.
Here are some questions that may help you take a break from productivity baggage if you’ve been carrying it around:
- What do you do to recharge?
- Do you feel guilty when you do this? Why?
- What did you do the times you didn’t feel guilty for relaxing?
- How can you incorporate your down time into every day?
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05.03.07
Posted in Paths to Bliss, Quick Tricks
at 12:36 pm
I didn’t say “quick trick” this time because the beginning of this process isn’t exactly quick, but once you do the basic work you can do quick “tune ups” when needed. So anyway, I was at an acupuncture appointment this week and part of it was going over my life back from childhood and talking about what it was like to be me and if I had suffered any trauma. 
And I’ve thought about my life story many times and told it several times, but this time the experience of remembering was completely different for me.
A transcript of the story probably wouldn’t have yielded any surprising differences (except for a few things that had different emotional pulls than they used to)–what was different was how I was experiencing the story. Because I have been questioning the thoughts and beliefs I have, I was able to come to completely different conclusions about how and why the events of my life unfolded. Because I was coming from an assumption that I am a whole person (rather than a screwed up one), the events of my life seem like building blocks rather than stumbling blocks.
The Foundation for This Trick
Sit quietly and breathe for 10 or 15 minutes. Try and be fully present in your body and think about the things you’re grateful for and hold an image that makes you happy. Acknowledge but let go of any worry or stress that you have. Once you’re feeling happy and content in the moment, start writing down your life story starting from the earliest you can remember. (You can also say this out loud and you can ask a friend to be there with you to talk to if you’d like. You can do this in your head, but your old thoughts might get in the way and interrupt your story.)
As you tell the story, notice how the events in your life can have a new perspective. Notice how they shaped all the wonderful parts about yourself. Has your story changed? Have your thoughts about your story changed? What assumptions have you let go?
The Quick Trick
Whenever you talk about the events of your life, try and make them a full experience by noticing where you are in your life and acknowledging how all the good and painful experiences in your life have brought you to where you are now. Instead of falling into old thoughts about your stories, make a conscious effort to create new ones. Appreciate your new perspective!
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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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04.24.07
Posted in Paths to Bliss
at 11:41 am
I’ve 
been having fun watching the debate about The Secret grow as it seeps into the popular consciousness. It’s fun for me because a) the ideas of the Law of Attraction are really starting to go mainstream and b) when someone argues about their interpretation of the ideas in The Secret, I often get an intimate peek into their deepest held world views.
There are people who believe The Secret is pure hooey. They know that in order to get the things you want in life you have to work hard. They know that sometimes things just happen and we have to deal with things that happen for good or for bad as they come into our lives. Maybe there’s a plan for us, maybe there’s not but the idea that we can affect reality with our thoughts is ridiculous New Age crap.
There are people who believe The Secret is absolute truth. They know that their thoughts are powerful and they know it’s important to hold positive intentions and take full responsibility for everything that is in our lives right now. They know that if there are things they don’t want in their lives, they are somehow responsible and need to find better ways to think about things. They find empowerment in the idea that if they think hard enough they can generate what they want from the Universe.
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