Pain, the Great Motivator

For many of us, pain is the great motivator for change. Pain swoops in and chastises us for working too hard or pain tells us we’re not in the correct line of work. Or pain shoots through our body and tells us to pay more attention to ourselves and our feelings. A painful divorce makes us look at the person we’ve become. A painful accident often slows us down so we can reexamine what we are doing with our lives. The pain of being alone can drive us to expand our hearts to connect with others. Pain is a very convincing foot soldier. It fights for us to align with ourselves body, mind and spirit.

But what if pain is not the Darth Vader, the devil, the evil we make it out to be, but merely stuck energy?  We like our safe routines. Our guarantees. What we know.

If pain causes us to shift and change, perhaps the answer is to shift and change without the motivation of pain. Change through pleasure.

My inspiration for this really came from the book “Yes Man” which is entirely different from the (very good) movie of the same title. In the book, the writer dares himself to say “Yes!” to everything for an entire year and chaos and beauty ensue (and hilarity). Thus, I too started saying “yes” and doing things I’ve never done and I felt an incredible inflow of energy. With more energy came greater passion and following those passions, greater joy and more perspective.

Everyday became new and exciting. Never knowing what I would do or what beauty would open up for me.  

But if saying “yes” to everything to get your energy flowing is too radical for you, I designed a nice (safe) way to get the mojo flowing…in five easy steps:

1. Ask for the help of your higher self. You know this self; you experience him/her in nature, in church, in moments of bliss and great love. It can be as easy as saying “Higher self, please guide me.”

2. Sit down and take a few cleansing breaths. This is to center and bring awareness into yourself.

3. Ask yourself, “If I could do anything differently today that would be for my highest good, what would it be?”

4. Wait quietly for an answer. It will come. If it doesn’t pop into your head immediately, give it some space. It may come when you sleep or take a shower or make the grocery list. It might come as a strong pull to go somewhere or you might be attracted to a facebook event. It might even come as a friend calling out of the blue to invite you someplace fun.

5. Do it. Whatever the guidance is, follow it. Don’t make it hard. Don’t talk yourself out of it. Do it to the best of your ability. Even if you do it badly or for half the time. The smallest change can change everything. Why is that? Because you are letting go of a habit. You are doing something new. This brings in fresh, new energy. Fresh, new perspective. A shift. An opening. From that opening, other openings occur.

This is the “manifold path to easy enlightenment.” Small shifts that continue to open us up to the oneness. It should feel good! If it doesn’t feel good, don’t do it. The reason it feels good is that you are bringing yourself into alignment with your  higher self. The real you. The loving, lovable, wise, beautiful, funny, carefree, grounded you that is your true nature. The closer you come to that self, the more blissful you feel. Yes, there may be detoxing or resistance along the way. But on the other side of it – is joy.

As The Staple Sisters song says, “I’ll take you there. Mercy. I’ll take you there.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xO0Q3192Jrs&feature=related

Congratulations!

The crowd cheers. A warm sensation of success bubbles through you. Your body relaxes in acceptance of accomplishment. You feel honored. Like you made a difference. You changed lives and improved them.

I love the feeling of accomplishment. It really makes me want to accomplish something. Isn’t it that applause, that adulation, that feeling of accomplishment that drives us to rewrite the script one more time, to push our bodies to hold that yoga pose or create another art project for the kindergarten class.

So, what I am pitching is…start with the adulation. Start with the Congratulations. Let the feeling of accomplishment wash over you so you know where you are headed. Let the congratulations drive you through the obstacles to the successful completion of your goal.

I recently put up a “Congratulations” sign in my living room and it does wonders. Everyone who comes in wonders what they did to deserve it. It helps them reflect on the everyday accomplishments we sometimes blow past. If we don’t give value to these small accomplishments, how can we build steam for the big ones?

Every night before bed, I run through what I accomplished that day. I acknowledge myself for giving food to a person who was hungry, I acknowledge myself for the writing I did that day, I acknowledge myself for taking good care of my body, I acknowledge myself for any small breakthroughs –any change in a pattern – any upleveling -- any sign of a more open heart, I acknowledge myself for any refocusing I did that day, any healing work I did that day, any kindness I showed to myself or another.

My body/mind/spirit needs this positive reinforcement. It likes to hear what went right so it can do it again tomorrow. Often if we don’t feel acknowledged and valued by the world, it is because we are refusing to acknowledge and value ourselves.

So, say “Hooray!” Don’t be shy. Say “Great job.” Say “I’m proud of you” whenever possible and you’ll find you have more and more to say “hooray” for.

Congratulations! You did it!

The Dark Night of The Soul

What is a Dark Night of the Soul?

It is that painful—ouch! transformative time where you have decided you want a better life and your body/mind/spirit have all aligned to help you get it. First, your body/mind/soul say “We have to kick out the dust.” In order to uplevel to the next frequency/level of consciousness – the one that is kinder, gentler, knowing it’s value, easily auspicious, intuitive, aligned – the body has to get rid of the negative energy holding it in place. It has to clear the thoughts, feelings and beliefs connected to the old way of being. Thus, ouch, everything boils up, you feel like you are taken under, you can feel like this is the end of everything, so that, yes, you surrender, ah! You let go of trying, you accept the inflow of support (spirit), you give up control and become the child of the universe.

Why do we need the breakdown? Well, we don’t all need it. We could make small progress on our spiritual path everyday. But sometimes we get too busy and wound around the survival instincts and we forget to uplevel. Yet we get that nudge that there is more – that we are more. So, our body forces us to wrestle our demons.

The demons are illusions sent to help you recover your innocence. The illusions can take the form of physical pain, emotional suffering, paranoid thoughts, unconscious anxiety. The important thing is to pay attention to what is happening to you. Feel your feelings. When we use alcohol or pot to repress these moments of discomfort, they double in potency. We are taught as children how to repress emotions, but we aren’t taught (unless we did acting) how to express and let go of these feelings.

So, the first thing to remember is that YOU WILL GET THROUGH IT! AND YOU WILL FEEL BETTER ONCE YOU DO.

Now, how to get through it? There are many ways. First, don’t identify with it. You are not your thoughts, beliefs and feelings. You are something greater than that and eternal. You are the consciousness witnessing the growth of yourself. So, don’t believe the demons.

Second, You have to take responsibility for your feelings. You cannot process feelings that you do not own. So, cut yourself and everyone else some slack and simply say, “I take responsibility for being judgmental or angry or a bully or a whiner and I let it go.” Then feel what it feels like. Feel the anger or the guilt or the rage. If you are too remote from your feelings and you have the secondary traits that scream of repressed feelings like insomnia and body aches, then you can use breath meditation to help the feelings come up and out.

Two breaths in—one, filling and expanding the stomach – one filling and expanding the lungs and one breath out – all through the mouth. (Or you can pound the bed, scream into a pillow, do Kundalini Yoga Releasing Inner Anger Kriya.)

Once you have full explored and cleared the feelings, now it is time to clear the underlying belief that created it. You can do that by forgiving yourself for judging yourself as a bully or as lazy or as a bad parent. You can often trace the underlying belief from whatever the trigger was.

If someone insulted your work and that upset you…the underlying belief is probably, “I am not good enough. My work isn’t good enough.” So, in order to uplevel to the next frequency, you need a new belief, “My work is excellent.” (The belief creates the reality, not the other way around.)

The breakdown has now become the breakthrough. Feel the spaciousness within. The body is filling with light of new awareness and self-love. The mind is rewiring itself for the shiny new belief system. The body feels relaxed having let go of that tension of resisting and having detoxed from all those old messages you no longer needed.

DNOTS transforms into the BRIGHT, SHINING DAWN OF THE SOUL. Ah! Feels better.

And don’t forget to acknowledge yourself for doing the work to get through it.

XO, Laurence 

How Good Can It Get?

In moments of unmotived, blissful reflection, I find myself asking myself, “How good can you let this be?” Having overcome my personal dark nights of the soul and the majority of my trigger issues, I am relaxing into on-going periods of silence, beingness and neutrality. Yes, the colors look sharper and my awareness spreads into the details surrounding me. And the occasional negative thought will pop into my head as a reminder of where I came from. Then my neutral mind will cancel that thought or let it go or I will choose to refocus onto what I want and my life purpose without engaging with it. But for the most part, my heart and mind are just open and blank. When I need to do, I do, when I need to rest, I rest. No commotion, no self-argument, just ease and flow.

It is like living underwater in the ocean. It feels deep and soothing. Like time is slowed down. Like that ocean is within me. I feel so much gratitude to myself for dealing with the triggers, for tracing them back to their root and plucking them like weeds (one at a time), or rewriting them like a script. All my work paid off. Now I get to relish in the deliciousness and discover for myself, “How good can life be?” It is in the moments between eating the next bite of breakfast or daydreaming as I take a break from work.  

Can I allow life to be even better? Can I relax in that one area in my body? Can I receive more kindness from friends? Can I offer more generosity to strangers? Or to myself? What happens if I open to being even more joyful?

I share this reflection with you in case it speaks to you. In case it helps you allow yourself more joy and love. You deserve it. You can do more, be more and give more from it. 

So why not exhale all constraint and worries and inhale a whole new world of possibility. Limitless joy. That’s where I’m headed…join me?

Introduction to The Everyday Guru

The purpose of this blog is to share my thoughts, feelings and experiences as I grow in awareness and progress on my path of enlightenment. I call it "The Everyday Guru" because I find that I need to awaken my highest self, my inner guru, everyday so that I can be aligned with my highest wisdom and most joyful life path. A "guru" is a person who can find the light in the darkness or even transform the darkness into light.

Everyone's path is different and I respect that. This is my journey -- the forums of transformation that appeal to me. Part of awakening your own "inner guru" is discovering what works for you, what you value, what floats your boat, how you follow your bliss. To fulfill our life purpose, it helps to get in touch with what resonates highest for us.

There are many questions on the road to enlightenment. How can you tell what is your instinct vs. what is your attachment? How can you tell what is a proper warning vs. what is ego resistance. I will be answering those kinds of questions for myself using my own inner guru and hopefully can inspire you to do the same. I hope you will share your thoughts, questions and appreciations with me through the "comments." I look forward to awakening and walking with our everyday gurus...