The typical nature of all personal development blog posts is to define a problem, then propose a solution.

I’m not going to do that here.

We spend a lot of times trying to improve things in our lives. We want better, more, faster, bigger, cooler, and on and on. So is there a time when more is not the answer? Is there a time when solving something wrong with your life is detrimental, because you could be spending that time enjoying all the right things about it?

I could say something really obvious like, be content with what you have, or accept yourself for who you are.

I’m not going to do that here.

Instead I want to ask you:

Do you think you could bypass a lot of struggle trying to fix all the things supposedly wrong with your life, and instead learn how to appreciate the things that are right with it?

I’d like to take this chance to tag a few other bloggers on this meme:

• Alaia Williams
  
• Charlie Gilkey
• Alex Blackwell
• Vered
• Peter Clemens
  
• Tim Brownson
• Donald Latumahina
• Andrew Galasetti
• Luciano Passuello
• Mary Jaksch
• Kimberlee Ferrell
• Zeo Westhof
• Peter
• Bengt
• Chris Bradley
• Parth
• Monica Ricci

(If you want to be tagged, let me know and I’ll give you some google juice.)

So let me ask you: What’s right with your life?

Being true to yourself is not easy. In magazines, we’re shown images of flawless airbrushed bodies. Luxury and celebrity lifestyles are worshipped. In our culture we’re judged for what we own and what we do. Not who we are.

It’s hard to remain true to yourself when our culture encourages competition. I don’t think competition is a bad thing necessarily. Our economy’s livelihood depends on it. The problem is we define everyone as winners or losers. He’s a janitor, he must be a loser. She’s a fortune 500 executive, she must be a winner.

We judge people based on their outward appearances, the cars they drive and the restaurants they frequent. Have you ever been nervous to approach a person because they have a more important title than you? Have you ever avoided someone because they looked homeless?

Judging others based on their appearances and job titles is kind of inevitable though, as backwards as it may be. After all, it’s the first thing we see, and the first thing we hear. But I think we abuse this system.

In a perfect world, we would judge people based on the contents of their character (or not judging at all, for that matter). I think the more we practice doing this, the more comfortable we become with ourselves. The more we accept ourselves, the more we accept others as well.

Because the truth is, the level of your happiness is exactly proportional to the amount you’ve sold yourself out. The amount of contentment you experience is directly related to how authentically you’re living.

The main source of this problem is:

The Domestication of Humans

When we are born, we’re completely authentic. We’re wild. We think, but not in symbols (words). We know what’s right and wrong, but it’s not based on knowledge. It’s based on our integrity.

As we grow up, we’re taught (through language) what’s right and what’s wrong. What’s acceptable and what isn’t. We start to think of the world in symbols. Instead of experiencing life directly, we have series of thoughts and judgments about it. Thinking is essential to our success as humans and much of our lives depend on it. It’s allowed us to build cities, create technology and all sorts of conveniences.

The problem with thinking in symbols, is we judge everything. We judge ourselves. We judge the things we do right and the things we do wrong. We start to want everything we do to be right, so we create an image of perfection.

We’ve Sold Ourselves Out to Knowledge

I’ve talked here before about the importance of not taking things personally. That’s because what other people do isn’t about you, it’s about them. Well, in the same way, if you want to regain your authenticity, you have to not take your thoughts personally. You have to stop identifying with your thoughts. Because your thoughts are not you. Your spirit is not an idea or a concept.

Sometimes to stay true to yourself you have to:

• Stop caring about being defined by erroneous status symbols. Such as: job titles, credentials, college degrees, and the contents of your resume.
• Not care about how much money you have, how productive you are, or how popular you are. Instead you care about how much you control your time and how much you own your own mind.
• No longer live your life based on a template.
• Spend your time in unconventional ways (like long-term world travel) that cause other people to disapprove. The reason they don’t approve is probably because you’re forcing them to question their own values.
• Stop caring about what other people think.

I admit that it’s not always easy for me to stay true to myself. I often find myself editing what I say because I’m afraid of what other people will think. I find myself trying to make a certain impression, because I want people to view me a certain way. I want to be seen as someone “who matters” or something who is “interesting” or “important.” Every time I do this, I feel like I give up a little part of my soul. Every time I act a certain way for the sake of popularity, I sell myself out a little more.

It’s not easy being authentic. You have to be able to take some harsh criticism sometimes. That’s because authenticity isn’t popular; “fitting in” is. But have you ever noticed the most successful, admired people are the ones who have vehemently gone against the grain? Those that have blazed their own trail and followed their own path? I’ve noticed this. That’s why I live every day consciously following my heart as much as possible.

To help you live more based on the way you want to live and stop sacrificing your integrity, here’s what I’ve learned. I hope this will help you in some way.

1. Reject the idea that you can’t be consistently happy. Yes, it’s actually possible to be consistently happy. If you don’t take other people’s actions personally or your own thoughts personally, you can be consistently happy. The easiest way to do this is to stop caring.
2. Live based on your own values and not for the approval of others. We all do things to please others, that’s natural. It’s part of the give and take of life. What isn’t natural is living your life based on the expectations of others and society as a whole. If you can stop caring about what other people think, your happiness will increase instantly. This means having the courage to be corky, embracing your inner geek and be brave enough to just be weird. What one person thinks is weird is completely normal to someone else. It’s all about perspective.
3. Work toward your own goals and not to further someone else’s agenda. This one of the hardest ones to follow because many of us have no other choice but to work for someone else. You can start building a business now though, one day at a time. Within a year or two you can quit your day job. This is something that’s very important to me that I struggle with daily. I hate going to work having someone pay for my time. But ultimately it’s a temporary sacrifice I have to make right now (if I don’t want to be homeless). I work daily to try to build this blog so I can fund the ownership of my time. What can you do to afford the ownership of your time? Can you find a place where what you love to do, what you’re good at, and a viable source of income intersect?
4. Reject popularity as a primary source of happiness. It’s true that everyone wants to be liked. It’s a basic instinct of life. But if you can’t be happy without dressing a in the latest fashion, driving a mercedes or owning a louis voughton purse, that’s a problem. Who owns your happiness, your or some brand? Living based on a certain lifestyle is fine, as long as that’s what resonates with you. If you’re following a path, it’s not your path. (Although sometimes a dot is better than a path.)
5. Make freedom and authenticity your highest ideal. It’s difficult staying authentic. Illusory fears have an uncanny way of getting in the way of us. That’s why it’s important to make being authentic you’re highest aim. If you can make considering this value an auto-response it will be easier for you when it comes time to make a decision. When I think about the value of being authentic vs. conforming/popularity it helps me to realize what matters most me. It gives me the extra push to choose what will make me sleep easier at night.
6. Follow your integrity. Integrity, conscience, intuition, whatever you want to call it, listen to it. Whenever you make a decision, follow your integrity. This seems like such common sense, that it’s not even worth stating. But the truth is, we have a tendency to value logic more than how we feel.
7. Stop trying. Probably the most important part to being authentic is that you don’t try to be authentic. If you’re constantly thinking about being true to yourself, you’re trying too hard. Real authenticity is about being natural. You’re not trying, you’re just being.

This is just a starting point of things that have helped me live more authentically. Everyone’s path to staying real (or unreal) will be different.

Have you ever sold yourself out to try be more popular? To try to fit in? What do you do to stay authentic? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Live on your own terms, grab a subscription of Illuminated Mind now.

Our lives are inundated with practicality and productivity. We think that if there’s no purpose to something, there’s no point in doing it. In reality the best things in life have no purpose.

We sacrifice our time and our sanity doing what we don’t want to do, so at some future point we will create the freedom to do what we love.

We seek happiness in things. We seek happiness in the acceptance of others, in material possessions, in social status. We even search for happiness in some future-promised afterlife. We sabotage ourselves and our entire lives because we fail to understand a very simple but easily overlooked fact.

The Search for Happiness is the Single Greatest Cause of Misery

You can’t find something that’s already there. Happiness exists now. It’s not something you have to find. That’s like trying to find your breath.

It’s the grasping of the mind that causes unhappiness. If you’re not happy, it’s because your mind doesn’t allow you be happy. And the reason your mind doesn’t let you be happy, is because you’re stuck in the vicious cycle of productivity, judgment and purpose. That’s not to say productivity is bad, or that doing things that have a purpose is wrong. It’s basing the reason for your existence on them that causes so much anguish.

When we place our happiness solely in “getting” something, completing a certain number of tasks on our to-do list, or achieving a goal, we’re fooling ourselves. We’re like a rabbit with a carrot stick attached to our heads. We keep chasing the carrot, but we never get there. We never stop to think that it might be the chasing that’s causing the problem. We’re too distracted trying to find a better way to beat the game. As soon as we reach one level of success, we’re hurrying to upgrade our search and move on to the next level of the chase. We never stop to think that it’s not the failure to win the game that causes our grief, but the game itself.

We neglect to realize that sometimes the best way to solve a problem is to stop participating in the problem. Sometimes the best way to to solve a problem is to just stop caring (see: not giving a damn).

Sometimes…

• The best way to solve the problem of not having a lot of cool friends is to stop caring about having cool friends.
• The smartest way to be happy with the place you live is to stop caring about living in a two story house with a pool, a fireplace, central air and satellite TV.
• The simplest way to be content with yourself is not to achieve greatness and praise, but to accept yourself fully for who you are now.
• The quickest route to happiness is to stop caring about finding happiness and to start being happiness.

By not caring, we immediately release ourselves of the grasping of the mind. But it’s not easy to stay in this mindset (the mind loves to grasp); it’s something we have to constantly cultivate.

It’s especially difficult when our society tends to place more value on things, than on experiences. We value what we do more than how we feel.

This is completely ridiculous when you think about it. Because the way you feel should be more important than anything else. Isn’t the purpose of everything you do to feel good? Isn’t the purpose of that new car, that promotion, or college degree to give you a feeling of accomplishment? Isn’t that supposed to make you happy?

The problem with this is we’re basing our happiness on temporary things. We’re deriving our joy from an achievement, or an attainment. This isn’t true happiness; it’s an addiction. We get a short burst of endorphins to our bloodstream from our new TV/television, or new iPod, and then what happens? It disappears. It leaves us feeling empty and we begin looking for our next fix.

Our advertising and consumer culture doesn’t help this much. We are constantly bombarded with messages that we need this, or we need that. Incessantly, we hear: “Buy this and it will solve your problem!” If only we could solve that problem we may finally be happy. Wrong. It’s not the problems that are the problem. I mean, buying a more efficient vacuum or sowing on that button you’ve been meaning to for seven years is great. You may feel a sense of achievement for a few moments or days. But you’re still looking for happiness in a thing.

It’s the same with productivity. If only we could finish all of the things on our to-do list, could we be content. If only we could accomplish all of our goals, could we finally be gratified. This thinking is based on the illusion that you’ll reach a certain point where everything is done. You finally made it! There’s nothing left in your inbox, all your projects are complete and your lifelong goals are achieved! Now you can rest easy.

But this point never seems to come, does it? That’s because there will always be things to do. There will always be challenges, because everything in life is constantly changing. If you reached a point in your life where you had no more problems, no more struggles, no more worries, life would stop. The game would end and there would be no point left in playing.

So… what can we do about this?

We Need to Stop Caring

That doesn’t mean we stop trying to achieve our goals or striving for personal growth. It just means that we no longer base our happiness on fleeting, semi-permanent things.

There are obviously some situations where not caring may have serious negative consequences (see paying your rent). Excessive caring, however, is likely to make you miserable.

The reason caring too much can be detrimental to your health, is you’re so focused on the future. Your identity is too attached to outcomes. If something does, or doesn’t go your way, it will likely have an enduring effect on your mood for the rest of the day.

Instead, we should base our happiness on permanent things. Things that don’t change. Desires that don’t shift from moment to moment. We choose to find our happiness in living. In life itself. In fact, we don’t even need to “find” happiness. We can be happiness.

So stop searching. You can’t find something that’s already there.

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I’m sure you’ve heard the saying before, “talking to yourself is the first sign of madness.” But is thinking to yourself all the time madness too?

If you’re talking to someone and you never stop to listen, you’ll never hear anything they have to say. In the same way, if you’re talking to yourself all the time (or thinking) you’ll never have anything to think about except thoughts. You’re never in relationship with reality, because you’re living entirely in the world of symbols and concepts.

Reality has concepts and symbols in it, of course. But reality itself is not a concept. It is beyond concepts.

If we’re thinking all the time, we’re constantly comparing and judging everything. Reality definitely has judgment in it, but like concepts, it is beyond them. Most importantly, reality is beyond labels. In order to be in relationship with reality, we need to stop and listen. We need to go out of our mind.

In order to listen, we have to quiet our thoughts. If you’re like me or the other 99.9% of the world, this probably won’t be easy for you at first. We’re used to talking to ourselves constantly. We talk to ourselves in line at the grocery store, at our desks, while we eat. We even talk to ourselves while other people are talking to us.

When I first tried meditating, I tried to silence my thoughts, I tried to shove them out of my mental space. I did this with great effort and determination. Guess what happened? Nothing. Well not nothing, it just made me think even more (this is a common experience). So I tried even harder. I tried to push them out of the way and let no disturbance enter. But the harder I tried, the more disturbed my mind was.

It was like trying to smooth water with a flat iron. You just disturb it even more.

So if mandating your thoughts away doesn’t work, what will? The answer is just to let your thoughts go. Just watch them. Don’t try to stop yourself from thinking, that will just encourage it even more.

In meditation (the art of going out of your mind) there are various props we use to assist us:

• Music. I prefer listening to Japanese flute when I’m listening to music while meditating. Stan Richardson is highly recommended.
• Incense. Our sense of smell is our repressed sense. Focusing on the smell can help give your mind “single-pointedness” and relieve you from distraction.
• Breath. What would this guide be without mentioning our breath? Every meditation guide includes it, and for good reason. By focusing on your breath, you’re making a connection between your body and mind. Notice how your breath can be a both voluntary and involuntary action.
• Walking. I usually have the easiest time meditating while I’m walking. When I’m sitting in one place for a long time, my mind gets restless. When I’m walking, I can focus on the scenery around me and let my mind become quiet.
• Chanting. This isn’t a method I use a lot, but it can be a very powerful one. Chanting Om has been the most effective method for me. I concentrate on the fact that it represents the entire spectrum of sound and therefore the entire energy of the universe.

There are a lot of other methods, or props that can help you meditate and go out of your mind. Laughing is another very powerful one. Simply laugh hysterically. You don’t need a reason, although I recommend doing it when you’re alone, otherwise you might get some interesting looks. This is guaranteed to make you go out of your mind.

There are plenty of resources online that will tell you about the benefits of meditation. Better focus, a more peaceful mind, and the ability to handle negative emotions more easily. I won’t belabor you with all the benefits of going out of your mind, they’re thoroughly covered elsewhere. There is, however, one benefit that I think doesn’t get the attention it deserves.

The Inescapable Feeling of Total Contentment

There’s two different kinds of contentment, little contentment and big contentment. Little contentment is the type of satisfaction you get when you buy that new computer you’ve been saving for. It’s the feeling you get when you accomplish a goal, finish college and get your drivers license for the first time. While this type of contentment is certainly important, there’s a bigger contentment you simply can’t get through any accomplishment.

Total contentment is the feeling you get when your mind is completely empty. You’ve released all thoughts, labels and judgment and you simply are. When you do this, there’s a subtle feeling that there’s no longer a difference between you and everyone else, between what in here and what’s out there.

When you realize this, you realize that everything is already accomplished. Everything that’s strived for has been won, everything that’s been longed for has been attained and everything that’s been desired has been satisfied.

Beyond Your Mind

You feel complete peace, because you don’t identify with anything, you’re simply witnessing without passing judgment (it takes a lot of energy to pass judgment all the time, sometimes you just need a break)

When we silence our minds, we are able to just be; without judgment, without identification, without pining over the past and worrying about the future. We can completely shed our ego and re-center ourselves.

Most importantly, going out of your mind is about finding peace and perspective. Creating a story, with all the drama, the heartache and struggle is a beautiful thing. But if all we identify with is our story, we forget the complete perfection that exists in the present moment. We’re living somewhere else. Instead of living in relationship (and harmony) with reality, we’re identifying with some small portion of it.

Going out of your mind is about reconnecting to the source, remembering where you came from and why you’re here. It’s about finding perspective and solace in the insanity of day to day life.

Going out of your mind might seem insane. It seems like that because you’re not finding an answer within your mind. You’re going beyond it, you’re going to the source.

My recommendation: go out of your mind at least once a day (if it helps you bring it into your routine, you can do it while you brush your teeth).

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There’s a lot of fluff floating around in the personal development blog-o-sphere. I think there are certain things that people tend to shy away from writing about when it comes to personal development. Here’s 10 of what I believe are the most uncommon things you’ll never learn from a personal development blog, but should.

1. There is is no personal development ceiling

There will never be a time in your personal growth where you can say “okay, I’m done.” You can’t grow so much that you will ever reach a ceiling. The beauty of personal development is that you’ll find whenever you grow, achieve goals or find more personal freedom, your context changes. The more you grow, the more your life will take on an upward spiral of personal growth. The more things get better, the more you realize what you thought was a 10 was really a 7.

A lot of people tend to think if you “fix” certain parts of your life, you’ll reach some kind of ever-lasting contentment. True growth, however, isn’t linear.

2. Re-framing just doesn’t always work

A lot of personal development blogs will give you advice on how to be more happy. They’ll also try to tell you how to re-frame negative situations and see the positive side of it. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, for every negative there is obviously a positive. It’s just the way the universe works. But sometimes negative situations just plain suck.

If I got hit by a car, I’m not going to be thinking about how I can re-frame this experience. I’m probably going to be more concerned with whether or not I’ll be able to walk again.

3. Acceptance is more important than happiness

Many people when pursuing personal development go on a happiness mono-diet. They want to be happy all the time and will do whatever it takes to make this happen. They have a realization that their life sucked because they were focusing only on the negative parts of their life. While this is a huge breakthrough for most people, many people don’t really “get it.” They go from one extreme to the other; instead of embracing both equally important sides of life (the good and the bad) and learning from them, they become Mary Poppins delusional.

Denying your negative feelings isn’t the path to greater happiness. Ignoring all the shitty parts of your life won’t make them go away.

As important as it is to appreciate the positive, we have to acknowledge and accept the negative. After all, if white wins over black, all we have left is empty space.

4. The outside is just as important as the inside

Ninety five percent of all personal development blogs will tell you in order to change your life, you need to change the inside. You need to change your beliefs and agreements that you have with yourself. Drop dis-empowering contexts and embrace empowering ones. Makes sense right? When learning this new-fangled concept people can get pretty crazy. They’ve been searching for happiness from the outside in and this seems to be pretty enlightening. They’ve been looking for fancy products, an exciting job, new cars, and Armani shades to make them happy.

They’ve realized that no matter how much of these things they acquire, their drug like bliss is fleeting at best. So we wisely start searching for happiness within. But internal happiness will not make you fall in love with a dead end job you hate, it will not make you “come to terms” with your abusive relationship and it will not put food on your table.

Just as we go from focusing on the negative to solely on the positive, we become extremists on the other side of the fence. In truth, there is no competition. Integrated and learning from the positive and negative are equally important.

5. Happiness creates productivity, not the other way around

Increased productivity is the result of increased happiness. Placing a complex productivity system on top of work you dread will be a short lived fix at best. We’re also often the most productive when what we’re doing has no purpose whatsoever.

6. Simply reading a bunch of productivity blogs will not improve your life

Reading seven thousand ways to hack your motivation and the ultimate guide to be a productivity samurai will not improve your life alone. Reading a list about 100 things to be happy about will not make you a happier person. Passively absorbing information will not revolutionize your life.

An inner coup against doing things that make you feel dead and liberating yourself requires hard work, introspection and action. While getting ideas and advice from other people can inspire you, what matters most is how you feel about your life and what you want. The only person that can figure that out is you.

7. Doing less of what you hate is as powerful as doing more of what you love

Sometimes quitting and dropping out of society and others expectations is just as powerful as doing more of what you love. In fact, I think you’ll find in order to really pursue your dreams, you’ll have to quit a lot of things and forget unwanted expectations; ones that other people would find normal and unnegotiable. They’ll probably find you absurd and completely insane.

Doing more of what you love will always involve quitting things that are really negotiable (but seem like they’re not) and dealing with some major critics. Don’t worry, your courage to live authentically just scares them. Who knows, maybe you’ll inspire them to come to terms with the fact that they’re living in drudgery and denial too.

8. The “Golden Rule” is flawed

Everyone knows the golden rule, do to others what you would have done to you. While this obviously has good intentions, it doesn’t work in all situations. Particularly, in relationships. If you do to your partner what you would have done to you, you’ll probably annoy them, piss them off and leave them feeling neglected. Real meaningful relationships are built on trust and interdependency.

If you really care about someone, you’ll do everything you can to find out how they would like to be treated.

9. Your search for happiness, can often make you miserable

Searching for happiness will often mean that you have to face a lot negative aspects of your life you’d rather ignore. You’ll have to deal with all the negative experiences you’ve had in your past and try to find ways to learn from them. Moving forward sometimes means taking two steps back in order to take a step forward.

10. Addiction to self-improvement can ruin your life

You would think if you’re all gung-ho about self improvement, there’s no chance your enthusiasm can back-fire. Unfortunately, addiction to seemingly positive pursuits can be just as detrimental to negative ones. Addiction to self improvement can cause you to spend all your time trying to improve, but never actually living.

The goal of self improvement is to learn and grow, not to get sucked into a vacuum of obsession. There are many ways self improvement can ruin your life. We just need to keep in mind that self improvement is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

This list is obviously not exhaustive. What do you think people tend to shy away from talking about? Let’s start a discussion. =)

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photo by phitar

I have no shortage of ability to dream big. When I think about what I want I imagine working from home, managing my own time, having the freedom to do what I want when I want. I would love to travel the world, learn how to tango, become a martial arts master, produce an album, and write a best selling book.

Thinking big has always been easy for me, I’m sure you probably don’t have an imagine deficit either. But if you’re like me, the action part probably hasn’t always been as easy.

Unfortunately, contrary to what some Law of Attraction cultists would have you believe, thinking about what you want all the time doesn’t accomplish much. I used to smoke pot every day and think about writing music and starting a prolific band. 5 years later, I can still barely play the guitar. Which leads me to a little story I’d like to share with you…

An irreverent tale

A couple of years ago, I was at the local bar across the street from my old workplace. Anyone who knew me or worked there could attest that I was a little more than a regular there. At the time I drank around nearly every week day and smoked pot daily. This was a few months before my catalyst for change. Anyway, I was sitting at the bar and happened to start talking to a guy I had never seen there before. One of my favorite bands was playing on the stereo and I made a comment about how much I liked them. It turned out he liked them too, so we got to talking about music.

This guy (can’t remember his name) let me know he was a record producer. I told him that I was a musician, but hadn’t really recorded any songs yet. I don’t remember word for word, but I’ll never forget what he said to me: “You look like a thinker. Am I right? (I confirmed his hunch) I have some advice for you. What do you do when you take a shit? (I told him, I never really thought about it) Exactly. You just shit. That’s what you need to do with your music.”

While my new friend didn’t exactly deliver his wisdom in the most elegant way, it was so compelling that I remembered it several years later.

The reason I wanted to share this story with you is because I think there’s a slight flaw in the way most people attack goals. They think big, they want to lose 50 pounds, buy a new house, pay off $30,000 of debt or run a marathon. These are all great aspirations, the only problem is thinking this big when taking action tends to paralyze most people. Running a marathon or buying a house is a daunting task. Especially if you’ve haven’t even run 3 miles or even purchased a car before. I’d like to suggest a different approach…

Think Micro, Act Macro (but still think macro)

Most people say, think big, act small. Think about your project and break it up into smaller, digestible chunks. If you want to run a marathon, it might mean making a training plan, setting a goal to run 1 mile a day and gradually increasing the distance you run monthly or weekly. The part where most people go wrong is when they break up their goal into smaller chunks, they’re still focused on the daunting completion of their larger goal. This usually gets people frustrated because they’re not performing as well as they think they can, or their goal is so far off in the future, it seems they’ll never make it.

Instead, I find it much easier to think micro and act macro. I think about the smaller goal that I need to achieve, but act big. If I want to write an article, I set the goal of writing an outline, or the first paragraph. I think small so I don’t let myself get paralyzed by the intimidation of the final product. Finishing the first paragraph is usually easy though and my motivation tends to snowball afterward. It’s easier for me to think “I could write one more paragraph” (thinking bigger) than it is for me to think “I need to finish this 4 page article.”

Similarly, when I’m lifting weights it’s easier for me to commit to doing a set of reps and after it’s completed, push myself to do one more. If I were to try to pump myself up to go to total muscle failure in the beginning, it might seem too daunting and I could get discouraged from even trying to start. Instead, I think micro, but act macro.

While thinking small and acting big, it’s important to remember that thinking big is still important. If I’m thinking small about my health and just focusing on working out everyday, I might lose sight of my total health. It’s important to remember the other aspects of health that are important as well, such as; spiritual renewal (meditation, reflection), mental health (reading, learning), eating right, and building relationships (social health). It’s important to remember the big picture, but to think small and act big when determining the actions you’ll take to reinforce your aspirations.

Thinking big also helps you to maintain a greater perspective on what’s really important. Imagine you’re writing a song and all you focus on is the different aspects of each instrument. You focus on the sound of the drums, the guitar riffs, the base line and the vocals. You diligently work to think small and act big. You think about how each instrument sounds and how they interact and blend together. You focus on the transitions of the song, the verse and the chorus and the fills.

Getting too obsessed with this can lead you to neglect the big picture though. Imagine you focus on all of these smaller aspects (thinking micro) of the song but you neglect to think about the meaning and the emotional impact it will have (thinking macro). You’re likely to end up with a great sounding song, that has very little meaning or impact.

So think small, act big, but still remember to think big.

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For a long time, I debated as to whether or not I should write about my path to personal growth. After much reflection, I decided that if there’s at least one person that can be inspired or learn something from my story, it’s worth sharing. This is a story about how one day changed my life; the day of my overdose.

A Curious Boy

Since I was a young boy, I’ve always had a desire to figure out how things worked, taking them apart and putting them back together. Although the putting it back together part didn’t always work so well. My curiosity for how things work led to me explore how my inner world operated. I questioned the religion I was born with; I questioned the government; I questioned life; I questioned society, education, love, humanity, purpose, and beliefs. You name it, I questioned it.

My interest led me to Eastern philosophy and I began to question my beliefs about reality and how they affected my life. The first book that led me to taking an active role in responsibility for my life was The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. I first picked up his book in November 2006. I finished it a few days later.

Reading the Four Agreements changed my perspective on life completely. The Four Agreements essentially says that your life is determined by the beliefs or agreements that you have. You agree that things are a certain way and because you put your faith in them, it becomes true for you. I made a promise to keep these agreements with myself. I wasn’t always successful, but I kept the promise to do my best.

On The Edge

Despite my best intentions to improve my life, I had a highly addictive personality. I would often drink 5-6 times a week and smoke a pack of cigarettes a day. I smoked pot almost daily, as well. For me, having fun and using were synonymous. If there was no alcohol, pot or some other drug, our sole mission was to find some. While this definitely wasn’t harmless, it was beginning of something much worse.

On Halloween night of 2006, a friend at the bar in the bathroom offered me a line of coke. I felt elusive; I could think faster, it boosted my creativity. It felt like nothing I had ever felt before. It felt like heaven. Coke liked me and I definitely liked coke.

Despite how it made me feel that night, I knew the dangers of the drug. Pot, beer, and cigarettes were fine, I thought. But coke? That’s not something I ever want to get involved with. I stood true to myself and didn’t touch it, that was until I moved into a new neighborhood.

4 Liquor Stores in a 2 Block Radius

It wasn’t exactly skid row, but it was definitely wasn’t the nicest neighborhood I’ve lived in. Anytime there are 4 liquor stores within a 2 block radius, chances are it’s not exactly gentrified. One of my roommates was an English major and the other a Vietnamese exchange student who would often warn me about seeing “suspicious behavior” around the neighborhood. I don’t think he knew the full extent of things.

The state of the neighborhood never really bothered me. I saw it as temporary until I could move in with my girlfriend (who is now my wife) in a better neighborhood.

My best friend at the time and I ended up going to my neighbor’s apartment to hang out often (my apartment was not the most ideal place; my roommate stayed in the living room). Apparently, my best friend and my neighbor went way back. I immediately thought his roommate was shady, but my friend assured me he was alright.

Just This Once

The first time I went over to his apartment, his roommate offered me a line. I thought, What the hell, one line couldn’t hurt. A few days later, I bought two grams from him. Being the business man that I am, I figured if I’m going to buy it, I don’t want to waste my money, right? I’ll do half a gram and have him sell the other one and a half. I would make my money back and that would be the end of it. Naively, I trusted him. That was my first mistake.

The next day, I went over to see if he had sold the coke and had my money. He told me that they had stayed up all night doing the coke and would pay me back soon. This guy was a professional hustler and I got beat. It was taking him forever to pay me back and I was getting restless, but since I was his neighbor, he couldn’t avoid me. I knew that he was always broke, but he somehow always had drugs. I told him instead of paying me back in cash, he could hook me up with a line here or half a gram there. If he’s not going to pay me, I thought, I might as well get something. That was my second mistake.

Basically, him paying me back in coke over a period of a week or two made me end up wanting more when he couldn’t come through. I cut out the middle man and started going directly to his dealer. Coke was fun at first, but after a few weeks, the come down was unpleasant. Not to mention, sitting in paranoia half the night, wondering if my roommates could hear me snorting coke. The enjoyment had worn off. It was now an addiction.

Attempting to Start Over

In the midst of all this, my girlfriend and I were moving into a new apartment in a better neighborhood. She had no idea I had even done coke and I made a promise to myself that now that we were moving in together, my affair with cocaine was over. The day my girlfriend moved in, I told her that I wasn’t feeling well, in an attempt to explain my strange behavior (I was really high). She was naive – she had very little experience with drugs – and assumed “my sickness” would pass in a day or two. After she went to bed, I spent most of the night in the bathroom snorting coke into my now obliterated nose or outside smoking. I spent every minute sniffing, not wanting to waste any of the intoxicating drug. My paranoia was getting worse; I became increasingly on edge.

It was somewhere around 3am when my paranoia reached its peak. I couldn’t handle wondering if my girlfriend or the neighbors could hear me anymore. I had bought two grams earlier that day and had about one and a half left. I decided I was going to swallow it. That was my final mistake.

I swallowed everything I had left; I was pretty much out of my mind at this point. I felt a strange mix of paranoia and euphoria. It was as if there was a master control switch to the universe, and it had just been turned from three to two hundred and ten. Sounds I never would have noticed seemed like they were having a live concert inside my head. Endorphins rushed like lightning through my bloodstream. My heart was racing, my body was shaking and I was having heart palpitations. The intensity had become too much. I decided I was going to go upstairs to our loft to lay down and try to relax. The last thing I remember was telling my girlfriend that I loved her.

Disoriented

I didn’t know whether I had been sleeping or had gone unconscious. When I woke up, my girlfriend was on the phone with the paramedics. I was trying to make sense of everything, but every logical faculty within me had been shut down. An ambulance was pulling up to our house and she was directing me to go downstairs. I had a seizure due to overdose. My girlfriend had no idea what happened.

I was rushed to the hospital, hooked up to IVs and given two shots of Ativan, a sedative that is common in the treatment of anxiety and acute seizures. My heart rate was well over 200 and my blood pressure was in the 180’s before I received the medication. My blood pressure finally stabilized after the medication, but my heart rate would not go down. The doctor told my girlfriend it was probably due to anxiety and the emotional stress of what happened and advised her to leave until I calmed down. It was very obvious that I felt like I had completely betrayed my girlfriend; I couldn’t stop thinking about her or what I had done. I was kept in the hospital for 12 hours before my girlfriend picked me up to take me home.

When I got home, the Ativan was still heavily in my system. According to my now-wife, I slept for a few hours, woke up and used the bathroom, where I peed out some of the coke, which was excruciatingly painful. Later that afternoon, my sister arrived from Santa Barbara to give my wife some much needed moral support. My wife was 19 at the time and had just moved out for the first time in her life. Needless to say, she was traumatized. I don’t know how she handled the situation as well as she did.

New Beginning

The next morning I sat down with my girlfriend and sister to discuss what I was going to do to get help. Without them, I don’t know what I would have done. They had a list for me of all the things I needed to do, otherwise my girlfriend couldn’t be with me anymore.

• Break ties with all of my old friends.
• Change my phone number.
• No alcohol, no smoking, nothing.
• Talk to my family and admit my mistakes (as well as with my wife’s dad).
• Go to Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meetings.

Within days, I did all of these things diligently. Eventually I stopped going to NA meetings, because I didn’t feel they were helping me. While some people really need the help of meetings, I felt they perpetuated my problem. Calling myself an addict just seemed to reinforce my identity with being an addict. I wanted to move past that and identify with something else. I wanted to identify with sobriety. The hardest part of this was when someone asked me “What are you doing to get help?” and my answer wasn’t very concrete. I couldn’t show them a slip my sponsor signed off every week or that I was in a rehab program. “I’m working on it within myself,” was my response.

A few things helped me overcome – my therapist prefers the word “integrate” – my overdose and addiction. I began taking my personal development seriously. I quit drinking and smoking pot immediately after my overdose. I broke all ties with my old friends, including my best friend. This was one of the hardest things for me, but I knew that if I wanted to change, I had to change the people I affiliated with. I also didn’t touch alcohol for a year. I quit smoking cigarettes a few weeks later, after being a smoker for 5 years. I began walking to work everyday, four and a half miles each way. I started journaling and meditating. I began reading Steve Pavlina’s personal development blog. A few weeks later, I had read every article on his site (over 700 articles). I was committed.

Anniversary

May 27th was the anniversary of my overdose and the day that changed my life. I still struggle with how to integrate this experience with my life now, it’s hard to think about how careless I was. Somehow I feel sharing this experience with others will help me though, and hopefully help someone else. I felt a lot of guilt within me and dealt with feelings of betrayal from my wife. I still don’t know how she had the courage to love me through everything, through my deception and dishonesty. She is an amazing woman.

I’ve learned that when something knocks you down in life, you have two choices. You can either lay there and wonder why bad things happen to you, or you can get back up on your feet and make the choice to learn from your mistakes. In my case, I didn’t have the option of letting my pride get in the way. I knew that I had made the biggest mistake of my life. If I didn’t change then, I’m not sure if I would have ever had the opportunity again. I couldn’t take that risk.

I made the choice to learn from my experience and take control of my life. If my life was going to turn around, it was going to be up to me. I don’t know where I got the courage to face my mistakes and move forward the way I did. I think there was an angel watching over me that day. I know there was a chance I could have not made it out of that seizure, but I did. It’s funny, I’ve always told my wife she’s my angel since we first started dating. I think she was my angel that day.

A Light in the Dark

I always wonder if I could go back and change it, would I want it to happen again? I’m really not so sure. Sometimes it takes the most difficult experiences to smooth out the rough edges in your life. In my case, it wasn’t just the edges, but the very core of my being.

I wanted to share my story with you, to let you know no matter what situation you’re in right now, you have a choice. You can always choose a new path. Your path might be littered with obstacles, but it’s those challenges that define your character. Those challenges are opportunities in disguise. They are there to test your strength and your faith. It’s in those moments that we see our light truly shine. We only need to remember, that it’s through the darkness, we can see the light.

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photo by madhava

Our agreements with ourselves determine how we behave, what we believe is possible and impossible. We have many agreements with ourselves, the only problem is many of these agreements go against us. Self-limiting beliefs rob us of our freedom. We can blame the state of our lives on others, society, or our environment, but we will never be free unless we take responsibility for own freedom.

The agreements you’ve made with yourself can either be an elevator or a cage. Our doubts and fears are not true in themselves. Our deepest beliefs about ourselves and the nature of our world are not true in themselves, but our thinking makes them true in our experience. We can change our thinking and change even our deepest core beliefs.

In the book The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz offers four simple suggestions to change the agreements we have with ourselves, and recover our personal freedom.

1. Be impeccable with your word.

What does impeccable mean? It means to be without sin (no I don’t mean not committing adultery or coveting your neighbor’s bmw). If you look up the root of sin, you’ll find that it means “to go against.” Being impeccable with our word means we don’t use our word against ourselves. If we don’t like what someone else has to say, we can walk away. But if we don’t like what we have to say to ourselves, we can’t walk away. Doesn’t it make more sense to use our word to go with ourselves, instead of against us? Just with this first agreement alone, we can transform our relationship with ourselves.

2. Don’t take anything personally.

We all have a feeling of “personal importance.” We think that when others do something, it has to do with us. In reality, others actions are based on their own internal world. When we realize that nothing others do has anything to do with us, we become immune to their words and actions. Even if someone shot you in the head, it was nothing personal. It had nothing to do with you, it was because of their own beliefs and fears.

3. Don’t make assumptions.

How many times we do we get upset at our loved ones or friends when they do something that offends us. We think “they should have known.” The truth is, no one knows the contents of our minds. When we make assumptions, we create a whole lot of unnecessary drama. Instead we can ask questions, and have the courage to tell others how we feel. If you’re not sure of how another person feels, ask them. If we have the courage to ask others questions and be open with our feelings, we can save a lot ourselves a lot of pain and suffering.

4. Always do your best.

Realize that your best will be different depending on different circumstances. When you’re healthy your best will be better than when you’re sick. Whatever your situation, always do your best. The first three agreements are about changing your agreements with yourself. The fourth agreement is about putting them into action. If you always do your best, you can free yourself from the judge and the victim in your mind. Even if you fail, you’ll know at least you did your best.

Learning From Great Teachers

Whether they knew it or not, many great thinkers and teachers followed these agreements to some degree. Thomas Edison proclaimed “Hell, there are no rules here– we’re trying to accomplish something.” He knew that if there were too many rules, their creativity would be limited.

Gandhi was a master of not taking things personally. He knew that if he responded with violence, he would only promote more violence. He was able to see that their oppression was the result of their own beliefs, their own agreements.

When I think of someone who didn’t make assumptions, Jesus Christ immediately comes to mind. He didn’t judge others for their actions, he had the courage to ask questions and clarify his beliefs.

Albert Einstein knew that if he failed, there was simply another incorrect possibility eliminated. He could have easily become frustrated and given up. But he used the power of his word to go with himself.

Returning to Uncommon Sense

Most of these agreements might seem like common sense at first glance. But they are entirely the opposite. They are uncommon sense. When I first read this book, I thought “My god, how could I have not realized this before?” It’s so deceptively simple.

Implementing these agreements into your life, on the other hand takes hard work. Make the agreement to practice them just today. The more we practice these agreements, the more we’ll regain our personal freedom. We’ll unclutter our inner world save ourselves a lot of drama. Not only with ourselves, but with others as well.

By practicing these agreements, we can chip away at all the self-defeating beliefs we’ve created within us. We can recover our personal freedom.

Have you been practicing these agreements without knowing it? What are some of the agreements or beliefs you’ve changed that have helped you recover your personal freedom? Share with us in the comments. =)

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In my past I’ve had a lot of failed relationships. I was never able to understand why these relationships failed until I took a closer look at myself. I realized that I was seeking approval and love from my partner, before I found it within myself. I was looking for something from someone else that only I could give myself. The more I realized the importance of finding validation within me, I begin to take steps to love myself more fully. Flaws and all.

If we don’t have an adequate amount of self love, we’ll likely search for it somewhere outside ourselves. There’s nothing wrong with seeking love from others. Seeking ourselves, or our sense of self-worth in that love, is the problem.

Love must first come from within. No matter how much others praise, love or admire us, unless we feel that way on the inside, we’ll end up rejecting their love. If we don’t love ourselves, it’s hard for us to imagine how anyone else can love us.

How can we cultivate love within us? Just as we show our loved ones regular acts of love, we too need to show ourselves loving actions.

In India, they have a practice called a puja. A puja is a devotion to the gods. It can be an offering of food, incense, flowers, or a prayer, anything that can be interpreted as a sign of love. We can also use a puja or act of devotion, to show ourselves love. Remember, love is a verb.

Here are some suggestions for making a puja to yourself:

1. Go on a self-date.

Spend some time alone with yourself. Don’t think about what you need to do the next day or the cleaning up you need to do around the house. Just be fully in the moment and enjoy yourself.

Here are a few suggestions:

• Take yourself out to a movie. Be adventurous and pick a movie you wouldn’t normally see. You might be surprised at how much you enjoy the change of pace.
• Go to lunch at your favorite restaurant, sit and people watch.
• Go to a local caf� and bring a good book with you. Enjoy a cup of chai or tea and just relax.

2. Journal.

• Write a gratitude journal entry. List all of the things you’re grateful for in your life. Try going beyond the obvious thing such as your job, your house and your car. Are you grateful for your breath, existence, love, the sun, your mistakes?
• Let go. Take a moment to list all the mistakes you’ve made and forgive yourself for them. What are some of the things others have done to wrong you? List them and forgive them.
• Achievements and success. What are some of your greatest achievements? What are you most proud of in your life? We have a tendency to focus more on our shortcomings then our success. It’s important that we recognize our achievements and celebrate our success.

3. Do something special for someone else. This may sound opposite to all the other advice here, but we often feel the best about ourselves when we do something selflessly for others.

4. Go for a drive, blare your music. Simple, yet wonderful.

5. Buy yourself a trinket. Or an ice cream cone, or an ice cream cone trinket. The focus isn’t on spending money, it’s about doing something special for yourself.

6. Get outside. Go for a long walk or bike ride to a nearby caf� or just around your neighborhood. This is my personal favorite, it helps me clear my head and gain perspective in my life. I also like to go for presence walks, where the only thing I’m focused on is the present moment. You’ll think you’ve never seen a flower before.

6. Turn off the lights and light some candles, burn some incense if you’re inclined. Drink a glass of wine, coffee, or tea, read a good book, or watch a good movie. Look at old photographs and reminisce.

7. Sing to your plants. Just kidding (or am I?)

8. Give yourself the spa treatment. We don’t have to go to the spa to find relaxation; we can create it in our own home. Here are a few examples:

• Aroma therapy. Take a ceramic cup and pour some hot water in it. Now put 2-3 drops of essential oil such as peppermint, lavender or jasmine in your water. Put a tower over your head, forget everything and just breathe.
• Take a mini-vacation. Close your eyes and imagine yourself anywhere you’d like to be in the world. Imagine the most calming relaxing place. Go online and use pictures if it helps you. The point is to bring yourself into a state of relaxation.

I hope you enjoy these simple suggestions for making a puja to yourself.

What do you do to show yourself love?

Related articles:

• How to Love Yourself in 17 Ways
• The Secret to Self Love

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Life can become very hectic at times and it’s easy to lose sight of what is truly important. With the ups and downs of day-to-day life, our emotions can take us on a roller coaster ride. When things are going our way and our expectation are met, we feel good. But when we lose focus and stumble off our path it’s hard not to let our frustration get the best of us.

Regardless of the valleys and hills of life, we can remain centered by using gratitude as a tool. It’s hard to be focused on all the negative aspects of your life while feeling grateful. The same applies to being grateful for people. It’s hard to think about the shortcoming of others when you’re focused on how grateful you are for them.

Gratitude helps us re-center ourselves when we’re feeling stuck and unsatisfied with our lives. It helps us gain perspective.

The real question is, how can we develop a constant state of gratitude? If gratitude becomes a habit, we’re likely to feel more joy, be at peace and have a greater enjoyment for life. In order to make an “attitude of gratitude” a habit, the most important thing is that our gratitude is independent of our circumstances.

If our gratitude is only focused on the constant ebb and flow of life, we’ll likely be incredibly grateful when things are going well. But as soon as our circumstances change, we leave ourselves open to disappointment and frustration. This is the type of gratitude that often start with “at least”; “at least I have a place to stay,” “at least I have clothes on my back,” or “at least I have a job.” This type of gratitude is a struggle to find contentment when you’re really not that happy about your life. You’re just trying to look on the bright side.

To really make gratitude a habit, we need to move to a deeper level of thankfulness. This means being grateful for things that are independent of your current position such as; existence, your breath, love, your mistakes and failures, emotions, the universe.

When we move to this level of gratitude, we may still be thankful for the things in our life, but now we’re thankful for life itself. Now we’re encompassing every facet of our lives, including the ups and downs, highs and lows. We’re no longer just thankful that we’re getting by, we’re thankful that we are alive. In this way, our gratitude is no longer dependent or attached to our position.

We don’t have to rely on things to make us grateful, because we’ve moved beyond things. Instead of trying to be grateful for things, we’re now grateful to just be.

Here are a few ways to help you make gratitude a part of your life:

1. Create rituals to remember your gratitude.

This is probably my favorite of all the methods I’ve found for cultivating gratitude. When I walk in the door to my home after work I like to silently think to myself “how wonderful it is to be home, how grateful I am to have this space where I can express myself and cultivate my creativity.”

Another great ritual to make is to make a habit of silently listing all the things you’re grateful for as soon as you wake up. I find it’s best to do this before I get out of bed. I know I’m not the only one that has a difficult time getting out of bed, so this really helps me to start my day with a feeling of joy and gratitude. This same practice can be applied at night as well and can have a great effect on your quality of sleep and dreams.

2. Journal about what you’re grateful for.

When we journal about what we’re thankful for, we’re moving our thoughts to the material. This can be a powerful process and allows us to physically see the abundance in our lives.

3. Use a gratitude rock.

Find a nice smooth rock that feels good when you hold it. Now name this rock your “gratitude rock.” Put in your pocket or purse and carry it around with you wherever you go. Whenever you reach in your pocket and feel it, remember what you’re grateful for.

You can also use any other object you like, or even a color. Whenever I see the color green it reminds me of gratitude for life and the earth. Perhaps yours is the sky. Whatever is personal and has meaning to you is most important.

If we’re simply grateful for life itself, we can be thankful even when we have nothing. Our gratitude is rooted in the permanent and not ever-changing landscape of our lives.

If we can find a way to have gratitude in each moment, our lives will improve dramatically. Begin each day and live each moment in gratitude. Watch your life transform.

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