Character Building Exercise
Try the following exercise in character building. For three days, take note of everything in your world that irks you. Make a list of all the hurts, slights, jealousies, and injustices that you experience personally and the news stories you react to as you journey through your daily life. Then sit down with a journal and pen in hand to reflect on each incident. Something you value was trod upon, denied, or out of reach. Some injustice or some failure to care occurred. How did you respond to each incident? Did you react to the unkind or unconscious moment on the same wavelength? An eye for an eye? Or did you have the presence of mind to stop your knee-jerk reaction and respond with compassion and concern?
Rate your response to each incident on a scale of 1-10: 1 means “I responded completely unconsciously, without thinking or pausing to choose my words and actions,” and 10 means “I behaved completely independent of the circumstance and in alignment with my highest values.” This exercise is not about judging yourself; it is simply meant to provide a reality-check about your own moral character and spiritual power.
If you aspire to a growth spurt in your character, you need to honestly evaluate where you are now. Once you’ve taken time to reflect on what happened, engage your imagination and replay each incident as though you were, in fact, a fully conscious person, able to choose to respond from level 10. Do you see how you might you have brought a heart-full touch or sprinkling of humor to the moment and thus turned the circumstance around? The ability to self-reflect and self-correct is a key element in developing personal character. Do this exercise regularly and you will literally see the change you want to see in the world happening within yourself.
Taken from: http://omtimes.com/2011/09/spiritual-power/
The Five Agreements: Be Skeptical, but Learn to Listen
This is the fifth and final installment I am sharing on the Five Agreements. They have been a wonderful tool for me over the years and I hope you will go out and purchase the book yourself and use these tools for your own self-growth. Go, Be, enjoy your life.
Be skeptical because most of what you hear isn’t true. You know that humans speak with symbols, and that symbols aren’t the truth. Symbols are only the truth because we agree. . .
When you learn to listen, you understand the meaning of the symbols that people are using. . . .Be skeptical is masterful because it uses the power of doubt to discern the truth. Whenever you hear a message from yourself, or from another artist, simply ask: Is it truth, or is it not truth? Is it reality or is it a virtual reality?
Why would you want to invest your faith in any message that is not true? Well, you will not believe all the stories that we artist create with our knowledge. The truth doesn’t need you to believe it; the truth simply is, and it survives whether you believe it or not.
To be skeptical is not to believe everything you hear, and you don’t believe because it’s not the truth, that’s all. T he way to be skeptical is just to be aware that the entire humanity believes in lies.
All of us tell lies in one way or another, and it’s not because we want to lie. They will tell you their point of view, what they believe is truth. You listen to the way other people express their symbols, knowing that whatever they say is distorted by their beliefs. You know that what they are telling you is nothing but a story, and you now that because you can feel it. You just know.
You don’t have to form an opinion about what someone says. You don’t have to agree or disagree. Just listen. . . the words that come from an other artist have nothing to do with you. They are only letting you know what is going on in their virtual world.
In that world, whatever they perceive is truth for them. . . but it’s not truth for you. The only truth for you is what you perceive in your world.
When you learn to listen, you know exactly what other people want. Once you know what they want, what you do with that information is up to you. You can react or not react, you can agree or disagree with what they say, and that depends on what you want.
Just because other people want something, that doesn’t mean you have to give them what they want. People are always trying to hook your attention. . .Many times you just don’t want that information. You listen; you don’t want it, you ignore it and change directions.
When other artists are sharing their dream with you, just be aware that it’s their dream. You know what your dream is, and what your dream is not.
Whatever I tell you is just my point of view. I am responsible for what I say, but I am not responsible for what you understand. You are responsible for what you understand; you are responsible for whatever you do with what you hear in your head.
You can also use what you hear to find the truth. . .to change the message that you deliver to yourself. It’s your dream. . .
Once you can see the lies, you don’t have to believe them. None of these messages come from truth, from life; they come from distortions in our knowledge.
If you’re suffering, it’s not because anybody is making you suffer; it’s because you obey the tyrant that’s ruling your head.
Of course you try to escape from the judgement. . .But how can you escape from your own thoughts?
. . .you cannot hide from your own judgement.
They try to do whatever they can to avoid their own story. . .Some people are suffering from so much emotional pain that they decide to take their own lives. And all of this is just because we believe all those opinions that we learned over so many years.
When you have control over your own symbology, you are always centered, you are always relaxed and calm, because the real you makes the choices in your life, not the symbols. What can you tell yourself that you don’t already know?
. . .it’s something that you can feel without words, and it’s called silent knowledge. Silent knowledge is what you know before you invest your faith in symbols. There’s noting to know; there’s nothing to justify.
. . .languages are symbols that are only true because you think they are. . .Even the hell that you sometimes live in is perfect, because only perfection exists. Once you recover awareness, you become completely responsible for our own evolution–for every choice you make in life.
But you listen to your story, and because you respect your own story, you can enjoy it.
You will find great storytellers wanting to tell you what you should do with your life: “you should do this, you should do that, you should do whatever.” Don’t believe them. Be skeptical, but learn to listen and then make your choices. Be responsible for every choice you make in your life. This is your life; it’s nobody else’s life, and you will find that it’s nobody else’s business what you do with your life.
“There will be many false prophets who claim to be speaking the world of God. Don’t believe.”
The Five Agreements: Always Do Your Best
Here are excerpts on the Fourth Agreement. Next time I will share the Fifth Agreement. Namaste.
Always do your best. But keep in mind that your best is never going to be the same from one moment to the next. Everything is alive and changing all the time, so your best will sometimes be high quality, and other times it will not be as good.
In your everyday moods your best can change from one moment to another, from one hour to the next, from one day to another. As you build the habits of the five agreements, your best will become better than it used to be.
Regardless of the quality, keep doing your best–no more and no less than your best. If you try too hard to do more than your best, you will spend more energy than is needed and in the end your best will not be enough. When you overdo, you deplete your body and go against yourself, and it will take you longer to accomplish your goal.
Doing your best is taking the action because you love it, not because you’re expecting a reward. They only take action when they expect a reward. And that’s the reason why they don’t do their best.
They work so hard all week long, suffering the work, suffering the action, not because they like to, but because they feel they have to.
On the other hand, if you take action just for the sake fo doing it, without expecting a reward, you will find that you enjoy every action you do. Rewards will come, but you are not attached tot he reward.
If we like what we do, if we always do your best, then we are really enjoying life.
You know you’re doing your best when you are enjoying the action or doing it in a way that will not have negative repercussions for you.
If you take action because you have to, then there is no way you are going to do your best. Then it is better not to do it. When you are doing your best just for the pleasure of doing it, you are taking action because you enjoy the action.
Action is about living fully. Inaction is the way that we deny life. In action is sitting in front of the television every day for years because you are afraid to be alive and to take the risk of expression what you are. You can have many great ideas in your head, but what makes the difference is action.
It’s taking the risk to go out and express your dream. This is different from imposing your dream on someone else, because everyone has the right to express his or her dream.
I make everything a ritual, and I always do my best.
Whatever life takes away from you, let it go. When you surrender and let go of the past, you allow yourself to be fully alive in the moment.
If you live in a past dream, you don’t enjoy what is happening right now.
You are alive, so take your life and enjoy it. Just your existence prove the existence of God.
You can only be you when you do your best.
You don’t need the acceptance of others. You express your own divinity by being alive and by loving yourself and others.
Don’t expect that you will always be able to be impeccable with your word. Your routine habits are too strong and firmly rooted in your mind. But you can do your best. Don’t expect that you will never take anything personally; just do your best. Don’t expect that you will never make another assumption, but you can certainly do your best.
By doing your best, the habits of misusing your word, taking things personally, and making assumptions will become weaker and less frequent with time.
If you’re doing your best, you will feel good about yourself even if you still make assumptions, still take things personally, and still are not impeccable with your word.
Practice makes the master. By doing your best you become a master.
Action is what makes the difference.
it’s not about daydreaming or sitting for hours dreaming in meditation. You have to stand up and be a human. Respect your body, enjoy your body, love your body, feed, clean, and heal your body. This is puja to your body, and that is a communion between you and God.
Your own body is a manifestation of God, and if you honor your body everything will change for you.
Everything thought becomes a communion with God, and you will live a dream without judgments, victimization, and free of the need to gossip and abuse yourself.
The Five Agreements are a summary of the mastery of transformation one of the masteries of the Toltec. The knowledge is there; it’s just waiting for you to use it. But, you must have a very strong will, a very strong will to keep these agreements. Everyone tries to sabotage our commitment to these new agreements, and everything around us is a setup for us to break them.
That’s why you need to be a great hunter, a great warrior, who can defend these Five Agreement with your life. As the Toltecs teach us, the reward is to transcend the human experience of suffering, to become the embodiment of God. That is the reward.
We really need to use every bit of power we have to succeed in keeping these agreements. I have fallen many times, but I stood up and kept going. So if you fall, do not judge. Do not give your judge the satisfaction of turning you into a victim.
“Okay, I broke my agreement to be impeccable with my word. I will start all over again.”
If you break an agreement begin again tomorrow, and again the next day. It will be difficult at first, but each day will become easier and easier, until someday you will discover that you are ruling your life with these Five Agreements. And you will be surprised at the way your life has been transformed.
Do not be concerned about the future; keep your attention on today, and stay in the present moment.
The Five Agreements: Don’t Make Assumptions
Here is one we often say but don’t actually believe we are the ones that should not be making the assumptions. This is a one size fits all “Agreement.” However, I have found when I am working on this agreement that it freaks people out so much that I would ask for clarification and want to actually verbally talk to them, that they run and hide. Interesting. Read on.
The problem with making assumptions is that we believe they are the truth. We make assumptions about what others are doing or thinking–we take it personally–then we blame them and react by sending emotional poison with our word.
We make an assumption, we misunderstand, we take it personally, and we end up creating a whole big drama for nothing.
All the sadness and drama you have lived in your life was rooted in making assumptions an taking things personally.
Because we are afraid to ask for clarification, we make assumptions, and believe we are right about the assumptions; then we defend our assumptions and try to make someone else wrong. It is always better to ask questions than to make an assumption.
We only see what we want to see and hear what we want to hear. We don’t perceive things the way they are. Because we don’t understand something, we make an assumption about the meaning. . .
Often we make the assumption that our partners know what we think. . .
. . .you make the assumption that your partner sees marriage the same way that you do.
Making assumptions in relationships leads to a lot of fights, a lot of difficulties, a lot of misunderstandings with people we supposedly love.
A whole drama is created because we make this assumption. . .
We have the need to justify everything to explain and understand everything, in order to feel safe.
If others tell us something, we make assumptions, and if they don’t tell us somethign we make assumptions to fulfill our need to know and to replace the need to communicate.
We make all sorts of assumptions because we don’t have the courage to ask questions.
We have agreed that it is not safe to ask questions.
We make the assumption that everyone sees life the way we do. This is the biggest assumption that humans make. Because we think everyone else will judge us, victimize us, abuse us, and blame us as we do ourselves.
Perhaps you need to gather more facts about a particular situation. Or maybe you need to stop lying to yourself about what you truly want.
You lie to yourself just to make yourself right. Then you make assumptions, and one of the assumptions is “My love will change this person.” Your love will not change anybody. Now you have to justify your emotional pain and blame them for your choices.
Real love is accepting other people the way they are without trying to change them. If others feel they have to change you, that means they really don’t love you just the way you are.
If you love me the way I am, “Okay, take me.” If you don’t love me the way I am, “Okay, bye-bye. Find someone else.” It may sound harsh, but this kind of communication means the personal agreements we make with others are clear and impeccable.
The way to keep yourself from making assumptions is to ask questions. Make sure the communication is clear. If you don’t understand, ask. H ave the courage to ask questions unti9l you re clear as you can be, and even then do not assume you know all there is to know about a given situation.
Also, find your voice to ask for what you want. Everybody has the right to tel you now or yes, but you always have the right to ask.
If you don’t understand something, it is better for you to ask and be clear, instead of making an assumption. Without making assumptions your word become impeccable.
This is what I want; this is what you want. If we communicate in this way, our word becomes impeccable. All human problems would be resolved if we could just have good, clear communication.
Don’t make assumptions.
What will really make the difference is action. Taking the action over and over again strengthens your will, nurtures the seed, and establishes a solid foundation.
When you transform your whole dream, magic just happens in your life. What you need comes to you easily because spirit moves freely through you. This is the mastery of intent, the mastery of the spirit, the mastery of l voe, the mastery of gratitude, and the master of life. This is the path to personal freedom.
By don Miguel Ruiz. Next time we will discuss the Fourth Agreement: Always Do Your Best
The Five Agreements: Don’t Take Anything Personally
Before I share with you from The Four Agreements; I just want to mention how I have noticed this one is perfect follow up to what I was whining about last month. I need to stop taking it personally because it’s not about me if someone doesn’t want to clearly communicate with me. It’s a gift to allow them to go. It’s not mean, it’s not anything, it’s just noticing what I notice and noticing what I don’t notice. What an insight for today!
Don’t Take Anything Personally
The second agreement is don’t take anything personally. Whatever happens around you, don’t take it personally.
You take it personally because you agree with whatever was said. Personal importance, or taking things personally, is the maximum expression of selfishness because we make the assumption that everything it about “me.”
Nothing other people do is about you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own dream.
Even when a situation seems so persona, even if others insult you directly, it has nothing to do with you. What they say, what they do, and the opinions they give are according to the agreements they have in their own minds.
Don’t take it personally, because the truth is that this person is dealing with his or her own feelings, beliefs, and opinions.
You make something big out of something so little, because you have the need to be right and make everybody else wrong. What you say, what you do, and the opinions you have are according to the agreements you have made–and those opinions have nothing to do with me.
Either way, it does not affect me because I know what I am. I don’t have the need to be accepted. No, I don’t take it personally. Whatever you think, whatever you feel, I know is your problem and not my problem. It is the way you see the world. It is nothing personal, because you are dealing with yourself, not with me.
It is you have wounds that I touch by what I have said. You are hurting yourself.
Your point of view is somethign personal to you. It is no one’s truth but yours. I am the excuse for you to get mad. And you get mad because you are afraid, because you are dealing with fear. If you are not afraid, there is no way you will be jealous or sad.
If you don’t feel any of those emotions, it is logical that you will feel good. Because you like the way you are. You are happy with the movie that you are producing, happy with your agreements with life.
Whatever people do, feel, think, or say, don’t take it personally. If they tell you how wonderful you are, they are not saying that because of you. It is not necessary to believe other people who tell you that you are wonderful. Don’t take anything personally.
The mind lives in more than one dimension. There may be times when you have ideas that don’t originate in your mind, but you are perceiving them with your mind. There are parts of your mind that want one thing, and other parts that want exactly the opposite.
Humans agree to help each other suffer. If you have the need to be abused, you will find it easy to be abused by others. Likewise, if you are with people who need to suffer, something in yo makes you abuse them. They are asking for justification for their suffering.
Do not expect people to tell you the truth because they also lie to mantelshelves. you have to trust yourself and choose to believe or not to believe what someone says to you. Even if others lie to you, it is okay. The are lying to you because they are afraid.
If others ay one thing, but do another, you are lying to yourself if you don’t listen to their actions. If someone is not treating you with love and respect, it is a gift if they walk away from you. You will find that you don’t need to trust others as much as you need to trust yourself to make the right choices.
Someone can intentionally send emotional poison, and if you don’t take it personally, you will not eat it. You will only need to trust yourself to make responsible choices. You are never responsible for the actions of others; you are only responsible for you.
Next time with be the third agreement: Don’t Make Assumptions
In May 2012 I will be offering a five part unit through Tooele Journey on the Five Agreements. Stay tuned!
The Five Agreements: Be Impeccable with Your Word
Just a few words from me before I share with you from The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. I know I have a lot of work to do for myself in this area of being impeccable with my word. It’s a struggle, watching what I say. However, there is another side that I can ascertain that is blocking me from getting to far each time I take a step forward, I notice there are steps back once again.
Let me see if I can explain. I noticed a few months ago that a few of the clients I was working for were blocking me from having an oral conversations with them. This isn’t new we all know everyone is hiding their selves behind email, texts and Facebook. It makes me feel like hell will freeze over before someone can pick up a phone or meet in person to actually begin treating each other, once again, like we are all human beings, needing to see and interact in person with each other. All this hiding behind electronics really must stop.
Part of being impeccable with your word and as the Buddhist’s beliefs of Mindfulness of Speech go hand-in-hand with honoring another that sometimes you must step forward and pick up the phone, or go see someone in person and have a verbal discussion instead of hiding behind your text, emails and Facebook. (Don’t even get me started on the verbal games that are played once you do finally reach someone. Do not say you are sorry when you clearly not. All the lame excuses are just an insult!)
The people I have been dealing with and who would not be respectful enough of me to return phone calls, really should be stepping forward and looking at themselves and the classes they are teaching to others. How can you teach something you are not aware you cannot do? A person who teaches can walk side by side with another on their journey but tell someone to do what you are clearly not doing, is not ethical.
I just had to laugh at one person offering a communications class and who can’t even be bothered to have a verbal conversation with me. I have come across this four times since last August. Instead of stepping up and returning my messages I lost several clients. Once I don’t want to play games and pretend then I don’t get to earn money. Interesting.
That really intrigues me especially knowing the business these people are in, that why aren’t they strong enough and impeccable enough to pick up the phone or better yet meet with me in person instead of hiding. Its interesting to notice when I make action to let it be known I want to be seen and heard, that the other person hides behind lies.
I am curious all the places this plays out in their lives, as well. I know in my life I have been pondering it for several months and considering what the lessons are because I want to be sure I get it clear and with clarity this time. I am so frustrated with people assuming they can not see me or listen to me and think it’s alright.
I welcome comments to this page.
The following is from the Five Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz:
The first agreement is to be impeccable with your word. it sounds very simple, but it is very, very powerful. Your word is the power you have to create.
It is through the word that you manifest everything. What you dream, what you feel, and what you are, will all be manifested through the word.
The word is a force; it is the power you have to express and communicate, to think, and thereby to create the events in your life. The word is the most powerful tool you have as a human; it is the tool of magic.
Depending upon how it is used, the word can set you free, or it can enslave you even more than you know. Your word is pure magic, and misuse of your word is black magic.
The word is so powerful that one word can change a life or destroy the lives of millions of people. The seeds are opinions, ideas, and concepts.
Every human mind is fertile, but only for those kinds of seeds it is prepared for. One fear or doubt planted in our mind can create an endless drama of events. We cast spells all the time with our opinions.
By hooking our attention, the word can enter our mind and change a whole belief for better for for worse.
Impeccability means without sin. A sin is anything that you do which goes against yourself. Everything you feel or believe or say that goes against yourself is a sin.
Being impeccable is not going against yourself. When you are impeccable you take responsibility for your actions, but you do not judge or blame yourself.
Sin begins with rejection of yourself. Self-rejection is the biggest sin that you commit.
If I love myself I will express that love in my interactions with you, and then I am being impeccable with the word, because that action will produce a like reaction. If I love you, then you will love me. If I insult you, you will insult me. If I have gratitude for you, you will have gratitude for me. If I’m selfish with you, you will be selfish with me. If I use the word to put a spell on yo, you are going to put a spell on me.
We have learned to lie as a habit of our communication with others and more importantly with ourselves. We use the word to curse, to blame, to find guilt, to destroy.
Mostly we use the word to spread our personal poison–to express anger, jealousy, envy, and hate. We create chaos with the word.
We misuse the word so often, and this misuse is how we create and perpetuate the dream of hell.
. . .we are using black magic all the time without knowing that our word is magic at all.
Whenever we hear an opinion and believe it, we make an agreement, and it becomes part of our belief system. If you accept the opinion, it becomes an agreement now, and you put all your power into that opinion. That opinion becomes black magic.
The only thing that can break a spell it to make a new agreement based on truth. The truth is the most important part of being impeccable with your word. Only the truth will set you free.
Impeccability of the word will also give you immunity from anyone putting a negative spell on you. You will only receive a negative idea if your mind is fertile ground for that idea. When you become impeccable with your word, your mind is no longer fertile ground for words that come from black magic.
How much you love yourself and how you feel about yourself are directly proportionate to the quality and integrity of your word.
Be impeccable with your word. It is very powerful.
Use white magic, beginning with yourself. Tell yourself how wonderful you are, how great you are. Tell yourself how much you love yourself.
Embrace A Space
Say you are wandering around your home, tripping over the magazines you’ve been meaning to read, the clothing you’ve been meaning to donate, and the weight-lifting equipment you’re definitely going to start using any year now, and you decide it’s time to spruce things up.
Go into the least pleasant part of your living space. Figure out exactly what you can’t stand about it, imagine that you are this icky space and try to sense what it “wants.” Does your bedroom long to be rid of clutter? Does that dark and dismal corner year for a lamp? Do the living room windows crave curtains in a shade other than mustard? Imagine these things, letting the space suggested possibilities.
Notice which image has the yummy feel of a preference. Then, while holding in you mind any image that feels positive, ask yourself, “What would be even better?” until you can pinpoint at least one or two changes that are both joyful and doable.
Taken in part from Martha Beck’s article, “You Can See Clearly Now: in O The Oprah Magazine, January 2012.
Why I Coach:
That the universe is changing shape and humanity has to prepare for that and that I am here to help teach people.
BE RESPONSIBLE TO YOURSELF
Take care of your won messes whether they be personal hygiene taking care of your material possession, your needs and requirements. It’s up to you to clear your space, take care of your space and not steal minutes of those around you. Don’t be a “seconds” vampire i.e. steal energy from others.
Think of others you live with and clear you space.
Are you clearing the space around your body energy for others?
• Consideration
• Values
• Morals
• Responsible
Clearing Your Space
Clear the space for your divinity.
What is your destiny?
What is your fate?
Why are you here on Earth? . . .to become the awareness of that which you are.
We get caught up in the past, the future–but don’t sit in the NOW. That is all there really is NOW.
It’s nice to have something to look forward to but not if it replaces the space where you replace “being”–being aware of this happy, pleasurable moment of the NOW.
Now is all there is.
