Michael

I felt the need to get out in nature today, so I went to Heritage Park off of Rt. 44 in Rhode Island. The area is richly wooded and has a couple of streams that run through. There are a couple of loop trails that are really nice.

The first thing I did was go to an area off the parking lot that doesn’t really have much more than a small footpath. I wanted some quiet time. As I sat on a log, my hearing became stronger as the only sound I could hear was the wind. There is something about the wind blowing through the trees that is very relaxing. It seems that the whole world was still except for the steady drone of the wind. I found this quite cathartic.

The more I sat there with my eyes closed the more I became aware of things around me. I noticed small sounds very clearly; a single leave blowing across the ground, a twig falling from a tree, the sound of water from a pond behind me.

This practice became a short meditation in the sense that I was not focusing on any one thing in particular but attempting to be aware of everything around me at the same time. It was strangely calming and quite grounding. After a short while, I got up and took a brisk walk around the outer loop trail. I felt much better after my forest therapy. A good walk in a park or nature area can be just what one needs to relax, recharge the batteries and re-connect with the important things in one’s life.

Have a great day.

Michael

Tonight, I went to the see the movie Peaceful Warrior. It is based on the book by Dan Millman, Way of the Peaceful Warrior. I definitely enjoyed the movie. It was great to see it come to life on the big screen as I had read the book a little over four years ago. Nick Nolte plays Socrates, Dan’s teacher and mentor. Scott Mechlowicz plays Dan Millman. I’m purposely not going to delve into the details of the movie or book. I want you to get your own messages and meanings.

The spiritual message found in the book was important during an intense period of my life. I found myself re-living some of the same feelings I was experiencing during that time while I was watching the movie. Don’t get me wrong. This wasn’t a bad thing. It was a detached view of what I went through and how I resolved those issues. The book really helped me.

Go see the movie, read Dan’s book, and visit his website. I believe you’ll get some good techniques and concepts to help make your life that much more meaningful.

Michael

Do you hear your inner voice? It is the most quiet of all the voices we hear in our head. It’s the first thing you hear when you need to make a decision, but if you don’t listen it can quickly be drowned out by other thoughts and justifications.

Your inner voice speaks the truth; your truth. Many believe this is your soul talking to you. Regardless of your belief, your inner voice is the most important voice to listen to you as it is speaking from your heart. Our inner voice is the pure part of our being. It is the real “us” unbound from our negative beliefs, experiences and perspectives that tend to misguide us at times.

Sometimes we argue with our inner voice as we believe we know better. See Rebekita’s post on Following the Heart. Even when what our inner voice is saying feels “right”, we still try to go off in a different direction. Our mind and ego gets in the way of what is good for us. Our inner voice is the one guiding us to Go With the Flow. It really is the voice that can be trusted.

How you can you start to listen more to your inner voice? I have used the following suggestions for several years. You may come up with others. Please share what ways you use to listen to your inner voice.

• Ask yourself an important question (maybe a decision you have to make). What is the first thing that comes to my mind? That is your inner voice.
• Meditate. Meditating will, over time, help to reduce the extraneous voices that mask your inner voice.
• Play the game I discuss in Going with Flow – Part 2. Try the first three ideas especially.
• Do something that just feels “right” to you, even though your mind may be telling you something else.

If you aren’t use to listening to the quiet voice inside, give yourself some time to practice. It’s just like anything else. The more you practice, the better you’ll get at it. So, be patient as that attribute will also help you in the pursuit of your inner voice.

Have a great day!

Michael

To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must cultivate our personal life; and to cultivate our personal life, we must first set our hearts right. – Confucius

If you didn’t think you could have an effect on the world, then this quote from Confucius should change your mind. Confucius’s quote is a fundamental belief of mine; that before we can change the world, we must change ourselves. The simple act of putting ourselves in order, changes everything around us. Sometimes I think it is easier to work on the external problems than work on our own internal struggles. It seems we can see more clearly the path to a solution when it doesn’t involve our own issues.

All through history are many examples of people who have changed themselves, put their own house in order and affected the world dramatically; Gandhi, Jesus and Buddha are a few of the big ones. But there are millions more who are not known by history, but are known very well by the people who benefited from their example. I’m sure you know someone that fits this profile.

If you really believe in helping the world, then look inside yourself. What emotional struggle have you been avoiding? What fear has caused you to not be who you truly are? What belief system has prevented you from having an open mind? Is there something you have wanted to tell someone but haven’t? Have you made excuses for not doing something fun for yourself?

Find these seemingly little things and start tweaking them into something more positive. Learn the lessons you are trying to teach yourself. And then watch the world change.

Michael

I wrote this poem while flying from Frankfurt to Boston today.

Snow Sounds

Softly falling
Swirling down
Quietly blanketing
All things exposed.

Whiteness envelops,
Surrounds and absorbs
All colors
Transformed.

Inner voice connects
With outer beauty
Inward and outward realities
By silence bridged.

The sound of snow
Soft, deep, timeless
The world’s cacophony
Now muted

My soul
At
Peace

As promised from yesterday’s post, here are a few simple techniques to help you start breaking out of your upstream struggle and begin learning to “go with flow.”

1. Try this is in a big city or downtown area. Start walking in any direction. Don’t have any particular place to go. When you see something that is interesting stop and check it out. When you get to an intersection go the direction that first pops into your mind. Don’t think about it. Just go with it. I suspect that you will find some interesting stores, meet some interesting people, see things you haven’t noticed before and generally have an adventure.
2. Get in your car and start driving. Don’t have a particular place to go. As in #1, when you get to an intersection, go the direction that first pops into your mind without any thinking (obviously obey all traffic laws and signals). If you see something interesting, stop and investigate.
3. Ask yourself the question, “What do I want to do right now?”. Go and do that thing immediately.
4. Go take a walk or hike in an area that you have never been. Walk in the direction that first pops into your head (do you see a theme here?).
5. Think of something you have never done, but wondered if you would like it. Go try it. You may surprise yourself.
6. Try some food that you’ve never tried before.
7. Meditate for 15 minutes twice a day.

As you can see these techniques are quite easy and could be done anywhere or anytime. The key is to listen to your inner voice and start breaking life molds that discuss themselves as habits and fears.

I’m sure you can think of other techniques that can help break the upstream cycle and start to allow your life to flow easily downstream. Let me know some of the techniques you use.

Michael

I really like the analogy of “Going With the Flow.” Do you find this concept difficult in practice? I have in the past and sometimes I still struggle with this. But, I can say from experience, when you are going with the flow it is a wonderful feeling!

Abraham uses this analogy frequently. Imagine yourself facing a fast moving stream. You place your canoe in the water, point it upstream and start paddling as hard as you can. You can sustain this effort for some time. In fact, people will notice how hard you are working and applaud you for your efforts. Of course, this gives you encouragement and you continue to paddle fervently upstream. But it’s really hard. Successes happen only with tremendous effort. You never have a break. It’s a constant struggle.

The other choice is to point your canoe downstream and let the current take you. As you see obstacles ahead, you make very small adjustments in your direction to avoid them. You notice how little effort this is requiring. It almost seems wrong that you are not having to work hard. You are actually having fun, enjoying the scenery and focusing on the journey. Successes come frequently and easily. People will start frowning at you since you don’t seem to have to work very hard. They will call you lucky and try to justify it their minds. But you know that it is simply because you are letting go and allowing life to unfold before you based on your desire.

Think about your choices. Do you want to paddle upstream or let the downstream current take you where you want to go?

Tomorrow I’ll talk about some simple techniques to start shifting your life from an upstream struggle to a downstream vacation.

Have a great day!

Michael

The events of January 19th put me in deep thought. I started looking at my life overall and evaluating if I was going in the direction I desired and doing everything I wanted to do. My first response was that I could make some significant adjustments and quickly proceed to a more desirable place. We all get “stuck” in our daily lives. Habits become little rituals that keep us in ruts which constrain us from branching out and trying different directions. We start to focus and react more to what is happening around us and not keeping our future desires in our conscious minds while we enjoy the present moment.

I don’t want to have any unanswered questions when I get older. I want to know whether the answer was a yes or no. I want to try different things regardless of the outcome. I don’t want to be saying, “Well, I wonder what would have happened if I had done this or that?” I would much rather say, “Well, I tried that. It wasn’t for me. Or I tried that and WOW how it changed my life forever.” Isn’t that a much better place to be?

I have a list called A Hundred Things I Want to do Before I Die. For the first time in 2 or 3 years, I pulled out the list, made some updates, checked off things I had done, added some new ones and basically began to re-focus on working on completing the items I desire to do before I die. I’m not going to wait another 2 or 3 years to review this list. It will be a monthly occurrence now. No more excuses.

I also began to think about all my relationships; not just romantic, but friends, work, family, acquaintances and etc. What things do I want to say to these people that I have previously left unsaid? I don’t want “things left unsaid” to be one of those regrets when I get older. So, I will begin now on working to clear up those items and not holding back from this point forward.

It’s so easy to start working on the things like the examples I’ve listed above once a traumatic event occurs in our lives. I’m not waiting for the next trauma or crisis to get “me” active in my life again. I ask that you think about what you can do to be active your life. Do you want to miss out on something because you need an external event to get “you” engaged in your own life? How about starting today for the simple reason that you can? Doesn’t it feel better to make changes in your life in a conscious manner instead of being forced to? It feels better for me.

I’ll keep posting on how all this is going while I live my life day by day.

Michael 

Around 8:45 a.m. on Jan. 19th, I was traveling north on I95 towards Providence, RI. I was driving in the lane second from the left on a four lane road. I looked down the road and saw headlights of an approaching car coming directly towards me the wrong way on the interstate. I do a lot of hiking with a GPS, so I’m fairly certain the oncoming car was approximately a quarter of a mile away. I also noticed that the car was traveling at high speeds. I’m estimating over 70 mph due to the fact that this car was passing others on the south bound side of the interstate.

I quickly moved over to the adjacent right lane. Almost immediately the car swerved hard and was now in my lane heading straight for me. I then moved back over to the adjacent left lane as there was no space for me on the right. Again, the car swerved and was in my lane. At this point, the car was a little over two car lengths in front of me. I wasn’t sure where to go as the car seemed to follow my every move. I decided to wait until the last moment to get out of the way.

So, I slammed on my brakes. The back of my Camry seemed to lift up and I began to fishtail. I glanced quickly in my mirror and saw all the cars behind me screeching and fishtailing also. At this point the car coming the wrong way slammed on it’s brakes and fishtailed so dramatically that the car was now oriented perpendicular to me and straddling two lanes. I was about to hit square between the driver’s door and back door of the oncoming car. I made a decision to try and jump into the right lane, but I had no time to look and see if a car was there. I swerved hard while I was still pressing my brakes into the ground. I immediately heard screeching, heard a bump on my right and saw a white car swerving to get out of my way.

The oncoming car missed me by less than half a foot. As the car’s taillights went by my window, they were so close I could have reached out and touched them. I looked in my rear view mirror and saw that car spinning down the road and hitting a couple of other cars behind me.

It took a moment to understand what was happening initially, i.e. headlights coming at me on the wrong side of the road. I felt that I had a lot of time to think about what was going on and make multiple decisions, but based on how fast they and I were traveling, the events outlined above could not have taken more than 2 – 4 seconds. I was traveling about 60 mph and as I mentioned earlier, I estimate the other car was going around 70 mph or more.

I slowly moved over to the right lane and followed the car I bumped until we could safely pull over and talk.

I got out and said to the guy, “Can you believe what just happened?”

He asks, “Was that car going the wrong way down the interstate?”

I said, “Yes and he was going at high speeds.” We began to look at our cars. We found no nicks, bumps, scratches, dings or scraped paint. The only thing we found was a slightly loose mirror on the guy’s car. Mine had no damage whatsoever.

I told the guy, “Listen, I’m just glad I’m still alive. Take my card and I’ll gladly pay to fix your mirror.”

He said, “No. Have a happy New Year.” He gets in his car and drives away. Unbelievable!

I called the Rhode Island State Police to report what had happened, but fortunately they had already arrested the suspect.

When I replay the incident back in my head, one crucial point continues to stand out. At the moment I tried to move over to the right lane and bumped that car, one image is burned in my mind. I was not far enough over on the right not to get hit. In fact, my view straight ahead was about even or slightly behind the back tire of the oncoming car, which at this point was about 10 feet away. I don’t know how I missed the car. Did it straighten out in that microsecond before impact or was it a miracle? Did the car somehow pass right through mine? I believe a miracle happened.

I must say that in my world view or belief system, things that seem impossible to others are quite possible for me. I have seen too many inexplicable things in my life. So, I have over the years come to a belief that all things are possible. And, frankly, I continue to experience the impossible.

Tomorrow, I’ll discuss what this incident has made me think and ponder for the last 48 hours.

Michael

I have found that when people get on their journey, they sometimes come to the belief that their journey is the right one or only one for other people as well. So, they not only tell people but start to insist that this is the only way. Sadly, some of the people they talk to believe this and change their journey to match.

It is vitally important to remember that our individual journeys are for us and us only. Everyone has their own journey. We should not in any fashion persuade or force others to follow something that is not their own. We sometimes do this unconsciously for the simple reason that we are getting such great results in our lives that we want to share with others. The enthusiasm of success can easily turn into a persuasion to change.

The best thing we can do for anyone is to show by example that following our journey is possible. This works great for children as they quickly learn by example. Once someone understands that the possibility exists, you can them assist them in finding their own way.

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite quotes.

Follow your bliss. – Joseph Campbell

Michael