"We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future."
-George Bernard Shaw
-George Bernard Shaw
1. Take responsibility for yourself and your life. Think of it this way: before you were born, your soul decided on the perfect situation, the perfect physical body, and the perfect family for you to be born into, so that you could learn the lessons you needed to learn. Beginning with those decisions and leading up to this very moment, you have created your entire existence. The way you feel about things, the way you view your surroundings and yourself, the life that you are living right now, and the amount of joy that you feel-you need to take 100% responsibility for all of these things. You have no control over what others think and feel, or over the destiny of nature, but when it comes to you, you have the right and supreme duty to take over. Stop blaming others for your shortcomings and misfortunes. Ask yourself instead, "Which of my decisions lead me to this, and what can I do to turn things around for myself?" You know what you need to do to heal yourself and your life, so do it. Resist negative self talk, and take responsibility for your thoughts. Think before you speak, and take responsibility for your words. The Google definition for responsibility is this: "The state or fact of having a duty to deal with something, or of having control over someone." This someone is you, this duty is your life.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I do not want the peace which paseth understanding. I want the understanding which bringeth peace."
-Hellen Keller
2. Move away from judgment, towards understanding. You have no idea where anyone is coming from, or what their experience of life is. You have no idea what awaits you in your lifetime. If you think about it, humans don't really know much, so wouldn't it be wise to stop closing ourselves off to things we can't comprehend, or things that make us angry and fearful, and to instead have an intention to question and understand? Wouldn't it make more sense as a human to look around with wonder, loving everyone and learning what we can? Imagine the life of the fundamentalist. The fundamentalist has closed his mind and heart completely to the ways and views of others, thereby creating his own sealed existence. He has decided that his beliefs and opinions are worth closing his heart over, and he goes to insane lengths to feel worthy, right and better than. If a person is on a truly wise and spiritual path, he knows that the only answer to growth is to continue opening, accepting, surrendering, understanding. No one ever became a Sage or a Saint by closing his mind and hiding his heart. When we view our surroundings with fear, anger and judgment, we are experiencing only a portion of what life has to offer. When we put labels on things and people, we are seeing through the very smallest of minds.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Have patience with all things, but first of all with yourself."
-Saint Francis de Sales
3. Surrender to patience. Everywhere I look, I see how hard this is for people. Every single day of my life, I'm reminded of how hard it is for me. We want what we want, when we want it, and we don't want to wait. But here's the thing. Life is a glorious adventure, and I can say from experience that we rarely ever know where the bends in the road will lead us. I used to feel so enraged by the fact that I hadn't become successful yet, and that was in my teens. Then, in my twenties I learned as many skills as I could, obsessing over them and then dropping them, one by one, always so impatient with myself and with time, wondering when success would come to me. As a kid, I dreamed every day of being a grown up. Now, I work tirelessly on my inner work and when I am triggered again, anyway, and it seems like I have made no progress, I kick and scream...until I remember that wonderful things rarely ever happen instantly, and that the purpose of this life is to just keep swimming. Time and the cultivation of patience are some of our most painful and most difficult lessons in life, but in so many of our biggest questions, the only true answer, whether we want to hear it or not...is "time." Learn to trust yourself and your destiny. Learn to just be. Set your intentions, work hard, and cultivate beautiful things...one day at a time.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That is the message he is sending."
-Thich Nhat Hahn
4. Love people anyway (including yourself.) Don't take anything personally, especially not other people's crap. Be kind to everyone. If you have a problem with someone, ask yourself, "What about me is registering with the negative energy in them?" If you weren't experiencing a closing of fear and anger, then you wouldn't be bothered, right? So, if we don't want to be trapped in a world of fear and anger whenever we are triggered by someone, then we just need to just learn to stop taking stuff personally and accept each other the way we are. We also need to accept ourselves even when we're pissed. When someone touches one of your nerves, imagine them in an encounter with someone like Jesus, St. Francis, or Gandhi. Take off your judgement lenses and try to see through the emotions that people throw at you. The weight of one unhappy person is not nearly enough to extinguish the light of someone who lives in love. It is always the unhappy person who is changed in the end. As Longfellow once said, "If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility." Live in the light of love and acceptance, and you will ensconce each person you meet, and yourself, with the freedom to be authentic.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"It is not a demonstration of kindness or friendship to the people we care about to join them in indulging in wrongheaded, negative feelings. We do a better service to ourselves and others by remaining detached and avoiding melodramatic reactions. Still, if you find yourself in conversation with someone who is depressed, hurt, or frustrated, show them kindness and give the a sympathetic ear; just don't allow yourself to be pulled down too."
-Epictetus
5. Be a good example. Even if it's the hardest thing you've ever done. Be respectful and kind to yourself. You don't need to take it upon yourself to change the world-just don't participate in negativity. Use your will power and continuously remind yourself of what your values are. Many people won't understand you, but as they see you changing and growing, they will either disappear, or they will be changed by you and accept you for the person you are becoming. Hold your life as precious, and don't allow anyone to bring you to lower levels of energy. Continue spiraling up, into more and more beautiful, positive energy. The negativity will gradually drop away, but only if you are making conscious, daily choices to live in your own integrity. By deciding to be a positive influence you do everyone a favor, especially yourself.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
6. Live in gratitude. Stop complaining. Forget about self pity. You don't like something about your life? Do something about it. Are things bothering you? Look within and find out why. Start focusing your critic's eye inward-not to question your self worth or wallow in negative self talk, but to fine-tune your physical, mental, and spiritual self. Once you have taken responsibility for your life, you will realize that everything you may have to complain about is self-created anyway, so the only person you're really complaining about (and to) is yourself. Your life is the product of your decisions, so turn your complaining into transformation. Learn to see life as a gift, and be grateful that you even woke up this morning. Be grateful for your freedom, and for a new chance each day to get it right. Give out compliments instead of insults, and maybe even let someone merge in front of you on the freeway tomorrow. Look at every setback and annoyance as the perfect opportunity for growth. That's exactly what good businesses do, so why not take that approach with your own life?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Be truthful, gentle and fearless."
-Gandhi
7. Tell the truth. There is no time in this world for lying. You have just as much right to a voice as anyone else, so speak it. Be a grown up and learn to live in your integrity. I love this Gandhi quote, because these three traits go together so beautifully, and in a way that I have faith in. I grew up fearing honesty, because I thought that it always meant criticism and confrontation, but it isn't so! Yes, it takes strength for us to be honest with ourselves and each other, but when you learn how to communicate in authentic, loving ways, there is really nothing to fear. As long as you are living in your integrity, there is never anything to fear.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The great question is: will you pay attention to things other than yourself?"
-David Whyte
8. Have the strength to think about something other than yourself. Pull yourself out of your thoughts every once in a while. Absorb the world. Listen to the wind, to the children, to your friends. Let your ego relax for a while and make space for experience. I think of this Haiku by Basho quite often: "A blind child, guided by his mother, admires the cherry blossoms." Close your eyes like the child and immerse yourself in touch, sound, scent. Reach out like the mother and lead others to beautiful experiences. Learn to open and grow, like the blossom, existing and flourishing not for approval or appreciation, but because it is simply natural for you to be who you are. Notice how the things around you, even objects, are alive and impermanent-an integral part of your existence. It's so easy to become 100% absorbed in the "I" and "Me" of life, but the only way to grow up is to see yourself as a small part of the whole.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Override your dark habits, leave your dark behind. Let the dark emerge, rise up, and deal with it so there is more space for the light."
-Steven Morrison
-Steven Morrison
9. Find tools that help you release fear and anger. Suffering is a natural part of life, and I have never known anyone who could process and release it without tools. Spiritual evolution (what I call actually growing up,) comes through experience and hard work-not through stuffing emotion, throwing tantrums like a child, or self medicating. If we don't find tools to process and release them, trauma and emotion build up in our bodies throughout the years, eventually turning into physical and psychological ailments. My current doctor is working on healing distressed organs in my body through energy release and toxin cleansing, and the biggest part of what he does is pinpointing exactly what trauma, from a specific point in my life, is still stuck inside of my body. So far, he has hit the nail on the head every time, and I end up weeping out years of backed up emotion for hours. There is a direct line between your emotional state and your physical state, so think about what you need to do to keep yourself free from energetic blocks. Here are some suggestions: breathing, yoga, exercise, TFT, EFT, meditation, Trauma Release Therapy, chanting, toning, crying, laughing, gardening, art, dance, music...the list goes on. Whatever you do, do it with the intention of opening, surrendering, and releasing.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"An essential part of spiritual growth is the removal of spiritual blocks. One of the basic blocks is the sense of guilt. To feel unworthy prevents surrender and subtly impedes spiritual growth. Guilt is an indulgence-an emotional teething ring which enables us to remain immature while whimpering that we are not good enough to have the experience we feel is reserved for 'better people.'"
-Rudi
10. Give up guilt. Let go of the past. Don't keep yourself locked in that prison anymore. Guilt is a heavy weight to carry around through your days, and it only ever brings unhappiness. Let it go. Whatever you feel guilty about, whatever you may have done, is already gone. It's in the past, and today you started fresh...so choose today to move on and build something new. If you have done something wrong, then seek forgiveness and change, and do the hard work to accept that you are forgiven. Going through our lives feeling unworthy and sorry for ourselves is a waste of time, especially when all those days, weeks, years and lifetimes could be spent in joy and beauty. Things happen so that we can learn from them and grow up-not so that we can hold on to them forever and weigh our souls down with anguish. Find peace in your relationship with yourself, find a path away from self-sabotage, and you will feel a release from guilt, shame and blame.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness."
-Henry David Thoreau
11. Live simply. Slow down. Stop running and experience life. You don't need a ton of money, food or possessions. Nobody wants to hear this but, you really don't need much. Learn to live frugally, and share what you have. Find an inner experience that is more fulfilling than the exteriors in your life. Minimize clutter. Speak when your words are necessary. Put your focus into the simple things in life, rather than complicating everything all the time. Try sitting in silence every once in a while. Do what you love and enjoy it, because you already have everything you need.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"A sense of reverence includes the recognition that one is always in the presence of the sacred. To live with reverence is to live without judgement, prejudice and the saturation of consumerism. The consumerist heart becomes empty and lonesome because it has squandered reverence. As a parent, child, lover, prayer or artist-a sense of reverence opens pathways of beauty to surprise us. The earth is full of thresholds where beauty awaits the wonder of our gaze."
-John O'Donohue
12. Walk with reverence. Walk gently, with care. Treat each living thing with respect and thankfulness, always remembering the sacred nature of your surroundings. Let go of consumer obsession and remember that none of the objects that money can buy have any real value. Make good use of this short time you have, to grow your own flourishing garden. Take it upon yourself to make this planet healthier and lovelier when you leave than it was when you arrived. Make your song a prayer, make your dance a celebration. In all that you do, honor yourself. In all that you do, open your face to God. "...seeing that as I went, I left my beatitude behind me,,." -Dante
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Remembering you are going to die is the best way I know of avoiding the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."
-Steve Jobs
13. Do what you love, as often as possible. There is no sense in following a path that you don't enjoy. What do you love? What inspires you each day? Find out all the things that inspire you to get up in the morning, and do them. Make time for your interests and hobbies, follow a line of work that makes you feel good and that you are good at. Do all the things you love, as often as possible. Steve Jobs says, "You are already naked." David Deida says, "You are already dead." Both are equally true. Your time here is too short not to do what you love.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul's evolution, the more resistance we will feel toward pursuing it."
-Steven Pressfield
14. Stop resisting and get to work. You already know every single thing you've been resisting, because you probably get a stomach ache or want to push it out of your mind the moment you think of it. Some things in life take a lot of effort from us, and we don't help ourselves at all by putting them off and then feeling bad about it. It may feel good to put things off at first, but it will always be weighing on your conscience, affecting your mental, physical and psychological health. Impress yourself with courage and open up Pandora's box. Until you do the thing you most need to do, your life will be merely half lived-a daily act of avoidance. Don't put it off til your death bed-get to work.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit."
-E.E. Cummings
15. Accept yourself just the way you are. With all my talk about growth and evolution, now I have to tell you that accepting who you are right now, is the first step in that process, and a crucial part of spiritual work. We must be kind to ourselves to experience real growth, because growth involves opening, and opening happens with acceptance. The moments of revelation, of ecstasy, of pure purpose, are few and far between, and in between them we are faced with ourselves and our issues. It is the same with everyone, and it always has been. We are meant to have flaws, so that we can learn and grow. We are taught to see ourselves in a funhouse mirror-where society, family, fear and delusion have shaped an image that is completely distorted from reality. This is the human path-the path to the true self, and it's not an easy one. We all need companionship because we can't do it alone, solitude in order to come home again...and little moments to wrap our arms around ourselves and say, "I'm here, and I love you."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts."
-Winston Churchill
16. Cultivate resilience. When life hits you hard you will fall, but it is down in the depths that we often find our saving grace. But once you have found the beautiful comfort of having surrendered completely into grief, it is time to return home. Keep your eyes ahead and your spirits light. Let yourself go into the depths, and then pull yourself out again. When we linger too long in despair, holding onto it and wearing it like a shroud, our hearts begin to close. The longer we spend time in the dark, the more our hearts sink down into darkness. Let life take you where it will, and always know that you were meant to be there, facing what you are facing. Keep picking yourself up, keep looking up, keep breathing and laughing and crying and believing that you deserve joy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"It is a grand mistake to think of being great without goodness and I pronounce it as certain that there was never a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous."
-Benjamin Franklin
17. Be good. Being a good person is not something to joke about or cast off with insults. What have you got if you are not good? If you say one thing and do another, then why do you even speak? If your actions are destructive to your life, your relationships and the world, then why are you here? If you believe in certain moral or religious guidelines, don't you think you should be following them? To be good is to live in integrity, and the state of integrity is the place where your deepest self lies. My favorite definition of integrity is from FreeDictionary.com: "The quality or condition of being whole or undivided. Completeness." To live in integrity means to be complete within yourself. You don't do it for anyone else-you do it because it brings you happiness, it's good for you, and it brings you closer to yourself. You do it because it helps remove the trouble from your existence so that you can live with a sense of purpose. As Epictetus once said, "Goodness isn't ostentatious piety or showy good manners. It's a lifelong series of subtle readjustments of our character. We fine-tune our thoughts, words and deeds in a progressively wholesome direction. The virtue inheres in our intentions and our deeds, not in the results."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dreams. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering."
-Miguel Ruiz
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The body has often been a scapegoat for the deceptions and twists of the mind, but the body has a real primordial innocence about it and an incredible brightness and goodness."
-John O'Donohue
19. Take care of your body. Put some thought into what's entering your body and try to keep toxins at a minimum. Eat in moderation, and eat actual whole foods. Cut down chemicals, sugars, and all the undigestible waste items that are labeled as "food." Get lots of sleep. Drink lots of clean water. Exercise, stretch, and find a good way to release stress. Do what you need to do to take care of yourself, because this is the only body you're going to get.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
20. Admit that you know nothing. There is no need to hold onto a false sense of security by living in rejection and ignorance. Let go of the idea that your way is the right way, or your belief is the right belief. As Robert Heinlein so cleverly stated, "One man's theology is another man's belly laugh" so try to keep your beliefs from becoming "knowledge" in your mind. Believe what you want to believe, and stand up for what you feel, but in the end, it is only logical to admit that you know nothing. Great scientific discoveries are found false, great religious leaders are found salacious, and all we humans really know is what we learn in our own experience. Wouldn't it stand to reason then, that experiencing more and learning more is the path to "knowledge" and "righteousness?" Never let go of your questioning mind. Never give up your desire to learn. There are lessons and awakenings in every corner of this world-clear your mind and seek them.
"The mind that opens to a new idea never returns to its original size."
-Albert Einstein
20. Admit that you know nothing. There is no need to hold onto a false sense of security by living in rejection and ignorance. Let go of the idea that your way is the right way, or your belief is the right belief. As Robert Heinlein so cleverly stated, "One man's theology is another man's belly laugh" so try to keep your beliefs from becoming "knowledge" in your mind. Believe what you want to believe, and stand up for what you feel, but in the end, it is only logical to admit that you know nothing. Great scientific discoveries are found false, great religious leaders are found salacious, and all we humans really know is what we learn in our own experience. Wouldn't it stand to reason then, that experiencing more and learning more is the path to "knowledge" and "righteousness?" Never let go of your questioning mind. Never give up your desire to learn. There are lessons and awakenings in every corner of this world-clear your mind and seek them.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"So join me on this journey we are already on. We can help each other hold nothing back. We can help each other live a sincere life. We can help each other wear down what gets in the way, waking close to the bone.
Come. There are teachers everywhere: in the stories around us, in the stories within us, in the life expression that sings where we are broken, in the kinship of gratitude that keeps remind us that we need each other as we become the earth."
-Mark Nepo
"So join me on this journey we are already on. We can help each other hold nothing back. We can help each other live a sincere life. We can help each other wear down what gets in the way, waking close to the bone.
Come. There are teachers everywhere: in the stories around us, in the stories within us, in the life expression that sings where we are broken, in the kinship of gratitude that keeps remind us that we need each other as we become the earth."
-Mark Nepo
For this painting and others by R. Noelle, please visit www.RNoelle.com
