“Choose your enemies carefully, ’cause they will define you”

These are some of the last words on the last track of U2’s new masterpiece album “No Line On The Horizon”. The song is called “Cedars of Lebanon” and is apparently told from the perspective of a war correspondent tired of “squeezing complicated lives into a simple headline”.

Actually several of the songs are from different character’s perspectives, and Bono’s words are (more than ever) pure poetry throughout the album.

“Choose your enemies carefully, ’cause they will define you/ Make them interesting, because in some ways they will mind you/ They’re not there in the beginning, but when your story ends/ Gonna last longer with you than your friends.”

Seriously, this is now one of my all-time favorite quotes.

To read more about the (did I mention it’s a masterpiece ??) album check out this fantastic article.

(If you haven’t already heard–as a response to a major leak of their forthcoming album, the band have chosen to stream “No Line On The Horizon” in its entirety at http://www.myspace.com/u2 (use the featured playlist scroll) )

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Had to share these words from Rainer Maria Rilke

“With all its eyes the natural world looks out into the Open. Only our eyes are turned backward, and surround plant, animal, child like traps, as they emerge into their freedom.

We know what is really out there only from the animal’s gaze; for we take the very young child and force it around, so that it sees objects–not the Open, which is so deep in animals’ faces. Free from death.

We, only, can see death; the free animal has its decline in back of it, forever, and God in front, and when it moves, it moves already in eternity, like a fountain.”

Wow. I knew I really liked Rainer Maria Rilke but I’ve never seen this before. The poem is printed on Edun scarves. Read more about this amazing company here. Source: atu2.com

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Woah, Ashton Kutcher is deep.

I’ve been meaning to post a link to this great conversation between Arianna Huffington and Ashton Kutcher because I was very impressed with a lot of his comments. I haven’t actually finished watching the video yet, but here are some things Ashton said that I wrote down a few days ago….

“At a certain point, you stop fighting that which is, and you start harnassing the voice that can be created through it.”

“The only time we can really feel success is when we expose ourselves to failure–otherwise, we’re never actually putting forth our maximum effort. ”

“The greatest thing about failure–that’s when you learn the most. The times when you lose, I always think that may be the time that you’re winning, because you’re actually just putting a giant magnifying glass on your flaws. When we can see our flaws, that’s real opportunity. Whereas in success, it becomes difficult to see your flaws.”

“You truly don’t own anything in this life, you’re just managing energy…”

“Dream Bigger”

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You’re getting warmer…colder…warmer…

In the January 2009 edition of O, the Oprah Magazine, Martha Beck has a great article in which she writes,

“It isn’t necessary to know exactly how your ideal life will look; you only have to know what feels better and what feels worse.”

Our lives are built moment by moment, and one of the most important skills we can develop is the moment by moment awareness of our thoughts and feelings so that we can use them as the tools they were meant to be. This idea is reflected in the Asian saying,

“The mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master.”

Being acutely aware of how you’re feeling lets you “see” what you’re thinking and whether these thoughts are helping you get closer (warmer) to what you want or further away from it (colder). If we shut out how we’re feeling, (as most of us are trained to do), we also shut out this invaluable guidance.

Most people are as Eckhart Tolle says, “completely identified with the stream of thinking”. When we’re in this mind-identified state, we’re not truly free and it will seem as if we’re constantly at the mercy of circumstances.

When we know ourselves as the awareness which compassionately watches that stream of thinking, we’re in the empowered position of being able to direct our thoughts (and therefore our actions) to create the kind of circumstances we want. However, the key in this process is an awareness of whether we’re getting “warmer” or “colder” both in our thoughts and in our actions.

In this way, step by step we follow a thread laid out by our deeper selves that leads to our most joyful lives. And as we choose “warmer”, step by step, moment by moment, in big decisions and small ones, we not only move closer to our own most joyful life, we also cannot help but positively influence others to do the same.

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“If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing badly”

I recently read this phrase in Martha Beck’s book The Joy Diet (amazing, I highly recommend it along with all of her books), and I immediately knew it was something I need to remember every single day. In fact, I think it’s an appropriate theme for this blog. Maybe I should make it the new subtitle. Ha.

I grew up familiar with the opposite of this phrase, which of course is “if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing well”. I don’t disagree with this statement, and yet, it also seems that many times this version just doesn’t serve us very well. How often have you not finished something, or not even started something you genuinely wanted to do because of the fear that you wouldn’t do it well?  And really, doesn’t this “not good enough” fear really boil down to the fear of what “they” will think?

I don’t know about you, but worrying about what “they” think has been a big issue for most of my life. Byron Katie’s The Work is a huge help with these types of thoughts; answering the four questions and turnaround makes it very clear that you cannot think someone else is being critical without being critical yourself.

Of course, criticism can be constructive, but only if it helps us move closer to what we really want. Too often though, criticism (directed inwardly or outwardly) functions more like an excuse to avoid stretching ourselves beyond our current capacity. As Martha Beck says:

“Criticism is an alluring substitute for creation, because tearing things down, unlike building them up, really is as easy as falling off a stump.”

If something is worth doing, it’s worth the risk of doing it badly because regardless you’ll still be moving in the direction of what you want, not away from what you don’t want. And that’s really just a paraphrase from, again,  the brilliant Martha Beck, who more eloquently wrote:

“Every time life brings you to a crossroads, from the tiniest to the most immense, go toward love, not away from fear.”

Since I first read that sentence I’ve been trying to remember it every day, as often as possible. Sometimes I’m not so successful in practicing it, but then I remind myself of the title of this post, and….you get the idea.

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So Proud of America Today

In The Name Of Love, not fear, Anything Is Possible.

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Blog Action Day 2008

This year’s Blog Action Day theme is poverty.  Many people now think of the ONE Campaign when they hear the word poverty; ONE is a powerful and empowering organization that has made huge progress in raising awareness about how we can eradicate extreme poverty in Africa. Bono, the co-founder, has often framed the emergency in Africa in terms of the opportunity it provides the rest of the world. In an interview with Brian Williams in 2006, Bono said:

“It’s an opportunity for us in the West to show our values, because a lot people are not sure we have any — to  show what we are made of, to see a continent in crisis and demonstrate what we can do.”

A few weeks ago when Bono was in New York meeting with world leaders to get the Millennium Development Goals back on track, he blogged about the meetings on FinancialTimes.com. Referring to Nicolas Sarkozy, he writes,

“At one point in the meeting he reached across and grabbed my arm: “You know, Africa is Europe’s next door neighbour, 13km from us. Our fate is bound up in theirs . . . it’s in our own self interest.”

Bono has also spoken about how merely bombarding people with the devastating facts and numbers of this emergency isn’t necessarily effective because it’s almost impossible not to be overwhelmed and tune out. For example, in the 2004 tsunami, 300,000 people were killed. The same number die in Africa every month from poverty and disease. People need to know what’s happening in Africa AND they need to know we can change it.

In this recent interview with CNN, Bono expressed his appreciation for the progress that has been made and made sure to emphasize some good news: the funds have been committed to ensure that malaria (which kills 3000 African children a day) will be eradicated by 2015, debt cancellation has resulted in an additional 29 million African children in school, and the (RED) campaign is responsible for the distribution of 2.5 million AIDS drugs.

ONE currently has 2.4 million members. “ONE believes that allocating more of the U.S. budget toward providing basic needs like health, education, clean water and food would transform the futures and hopes of an entire generation in the world’s poorest countries.” Members can connect with others who want to help, attend local events, meet with elected officials, and receive periodic email action updates (it usually takes less than 30 seconds to send an email to Congress asking them to support legislation to aid Africa).

“By joining ONE, you show our leaders that you want to do more to respond to the emergency of AIDS and extreme poverty. ONE aims to bring the voices of every American together with ONE message and ONE purpose: to make poverty history. ONE is asking for your voice to help our elected leaders live up to their commitment to the Millennium Development Goals and do our share to make poverty history.”

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Empowered Being and Doing

Marianne Williamson has often said that when we’re faced with a problem, our tendency is to think “What should I do?”, but the deeper and more important question we should ask first is “Who should I be”? Asking who we should be can help us become aware of the qualities we’re embodying in the moment—are we being needy, fearful, or angry? Are we beating up on ourselves or someone else internally? Marianne points out that we will remain “at effect” of a situation until we shift who we’re being enough to become “at cause”.

Eckhart Tolle has the same message: being is primary, doing is secondary. The doing is always infused with the energy of the being behind it. And as Albert Einstein said, “A problem cannot be solved at the same level of thinking that created it”. The action that we take is effective and powerful in direct proportion to the level of resistance within us. All negative emotions are indications of that resistance.

A very powerful way to shift who we’re being in a situation is to become aware of our emotions and the thoughts behind them. This sounds very simple, and of course it is, but it’s also very different. Abraham-Hicks provides an emotional scale in Ask And It is Given and suggests ways to guide your thoughts in order to help you move up the scale, a small step at at time. Below is the scale:

The benefit in moving up this scale is that when we’re genuinely in a more positive place emotionally, we are much, much more effective at solving and preventing problems. Abraham-Hicks says the first step is to identify where we are on the scale, since we want to make sure we’re moving in the right direction. If we’re at worry, moving to blame would be the wrong direction, etc. By consciously directing our thoughts, we can gradually move up this scale, but the key is that this is actually a feeling exercise. In other words, as we choose a thought that feels just a little bit better than the one we’re currently thinking (it must be a thought that is still “true” for you), we can feel a slight relief within us. If the thought we choose doesn’t result in even the tiniest improvement of how we feel (which usually indicates it’s not true for you), then we’ve got to reach for another thought that we can believe in that will bring us that slight degree of relief.

Another key to this process is that the goal is only to take small steps, not big leaps. When we’re at the place of worry, we only have access to thoughts that are of a similar vibration, so we can’t leap from worry to optimism. Instead we have to take it one deliberate thought and subsequent feeling at a time. From the place of worry, we do have access to a thought that feels just a little bit better, and from there will have access to another thought that feels better than that one, and so on. The more effective we are at choosing thoughts that truly feel better within us, the more quickly we can move up the scale.

Once we have released the resistance of the negative emotions within us, we will be in a place of allowing solutions to problems. There is a very strong tendency to start trying to solve the problem at hand as we move up the scale, but this can actually prevent the most optimal solutions. In other words, we’ve got to temporarily detach from the need to solve the problem and make feeling better the singular goal. Paradoxically, only then will our doing be infused with the power of our being, only then will we be working at the level of the solution (at cause), rather than at the level of the problem (at effect).

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The Importance of Setting Our Own Emotional Tone

Our emotions are vibrational indicators: positive emotions=higher vibration, negative emotions=lower vibration. Abraham-Hicks says that most people are unknowingly offering vibration in response to what they observe, therefore, they are caught in a cycle of attracting more of the same.

A simple analogy they use to explain the function of our emotions is that they are like the gas gauge on our car—if the gauge indicates we are nearing empty (negative emotions), we don’t try to cover up the gauge or pretend it says the tank is full. We recognize that the gauge is giving us valuable information that empowers us to take the actions needed to keep driving (moving toward that which we desire).

In order to break free of continually being at the mercy of circumstances, we must realize the power that is always at our disposal–setting our own emotional tone, or vibrational frequency. Constantly being in a state of reactivity to what happens is extremely frustrating–and rightfully so. Abraham says at a deeper level we all know that we are meant to be powerful creators of our life experience. In each moment we are creating–but are we doing so consciously?

Conscious Creating means that thoughts and emotions are recognized as tools to be used in moving towards that which we desire. Using thought and emotions rather than reacting to thoughts and emotions requires that we be alert and aware of what is going on within us in any moment. Eckhart Tolle often says, if we get the inside right, the outside will fall into place.

Abraham says, ” Pay attention to the way you feel. And when you hear a “buzz”, we would encourage you to do something about it. Don’t ignore it. Don’t accept it as normal. Don’t assume that it’s something outside of you that you cannot do anything about. Understand that whatever you are feeling is an indication of your vibrational countenance.”

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Allowing Our Well-Being

In A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle writes, “Non-resistance is the key to the greatest power in the universe.” When there is no resistance within us, we are allowing the power of the present moment, or life, to flow through us into this world. Similarly, Abraham-Hicks refers to the Stream of Well-Being that naturally flows through us and says that we have an internal guidance system which constantly communicates to us whether we are going downstream (allowing) or upstream (resisting).

The internal guidance system is our emotions. Our bodies respond to negative thoughts with negative emotions. This is actually an enormous gift, because the bad feeling of the negative emotions alerts us that we’re in a state of resistance and going upstream and away from that which we desire. The negative emotions feel so bad because when we’re going upstream, the current (life) is beating up on us. But Abraham-Hicks emphasizes that nothing that we want is upstream.

The idea that nothing that we want is upstream is probably difficult for a lot of people to believe because we are taught that stress and strain (resistance) is the way to success. But Eckhart Tolle emphasizes that the means and the end are one, and so while people certainly can and do achieve “success” through struggling, this type of success is always contaminated by negativity and inevitably results in unhappiness, disease, broken relationships, etc. As Eckhart writes, ” ‘Future’ success is dependent upon and inseparable from the consciousness out of which the actions emanate.” The negative feelings that always accompany stress and strain are the internal guidance system warning that you are headed towards things that will make you feel more of what you’re feeling right now.

When we’re allowing ourselves to go downstream, Abraham-Hicks says that the physically focused part of ourselves is aligned with the non-physical part of ourselves, or Source Energy. They often phrase it as the alignment of “you” with “You”. Just as Eckhart Tolle says that life wants to be friendly towards you, but first you have to be friendly towards life by aligning with the present moment, Abraham-Hicks says that this relationship between you and You is primary and fundamental to all joy and true success. When we get this relationship right, all other relationships will follow in alignment. All other relationships means not only the relationships we have with other people, but also the relationships we have with with the things we want–financial freedom, perfect health, success, growth, etc.

Similarly, Eckhart Tolle says when we are fulfilling our primary purpose of being truly present and allowing consciousness to flow through us into this world, we will have clarity and empowerment around our secondary purpose (what we do in the world of form). “In any situation and in whatever you do, your state of consciousness is the primary factor; the situation and what you do is secondary.”

Abraham-Hicks says in each moment we are choosing whether to align or not align with this greater part of ourselves; everyone is doing one or the other, but few are doing so deliberately. Deliberately aligning with the Stream of Well-Being is accomplished by first having a keen awareness of our thoughts and emotions and then using the power of our ability to focus to choose the thoughts and emotions that serve us. In this way, thought becomes the “servant of awareness” as Eckhart Tolle writes about in A New Earth.

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What Life Wants From You

We’re usually taught to think about what we want out of life, but if we want to feel a sense of meaning and purpose in our lives, we need to ask life what it wants from us. The only way to be receptive to what life wants from us is to surrender to life by surrendering to this moment, consciously.

I say surrender consciously because we are of course already surrendered to life. For example, we can control certain aspects of our breathing, but we cannot control whether or not we breathe. We’re not breathing so much as the universe is breathing us. But we rarely if ever actually live from the place of this recognition. Instead, we tend to associate surrender with giving up, when in reality surrender is the only way to truly take responsibility for our lives–by aligning with life rather than struggling against it.

It’s important here to bring up a point that cannot be stressed enough when referring to any spiritual teaching; as Eckhart Tolle so often says, the words are never exactly right because they merely serve as pointers to the truth that is beyond words. Language contains an inherent duality that does not actually exist. The phrases ‘my life’, ’struggling against life’, and ‘aligning with life’ imply that you and life are separate. But as Eckhart says, you don’t have a life, you are life. That said, it is the conscious recognition of this deeper truth that makes all the difference in the quality of ‘your’ life.

In the webclasses with Eckhart and Oprah, Eckhart describes how to discern what life is telling us about our purpose. He says “…The answer may not immediately come. Very important part of asking life so that you can be ready to receive the answer is to practice inviting moments of stillness into your life so that you’re not continuously absorbed in the incessant mental noise that we call thinking; most of which is unnecessary and repetitive. So to find spaces of stillness is vital if you want to get to the place where the answers are…”

Inviting moments of stillness also requires inviting moments of not knowing. We’re taught that we need to know what we’re going to be doing next week, in a year, in five years, etc., and while it is helpful and often neccessary to make plans, we should do so from a place of wisdom and openess, rather than a constrictive and false sense of control. If we’re too busy telling life what we want, we can’t hear what life is trying to tell us and may block our own highest evolutionary path. So often we don’t listen because we are afraid life won’t give us what we want. In response to this concern Eckhart has said “Life wants to support you, but first you have to be open to life”.

One of the phrases my Dad uses most often is “Let’s play it by ear”. Not surprisingly, he is one of the most flexible people I know. It wasn’t until just now as I was writing this post that I made the obvious connection between playing it by “ear” and being alert and present enough to “listen” to what life is trying to tell us. There’s always a message coming through, the question is, are we at the right frequency to hear it?

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