Trust30, day 6: Come Alive

Life wastes itself while we are preparing to live. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you had one week left to live, would you still be doing what you’re doing now? In what areas of your life are you preparing to live? Take them off your To Do list and add them to a To Stop list. Resolve to only do what makes you come alive.

Bonus: How can your goals improve the present and not keep you in a perpetual “always something better” spiral?

A comment as I begin this post; I am very glad that I both discovered and decided to commit to this project. The daily questions and considerations that are being brought up are some of the items that I have most desired to embrace AND avoid for a good portion of my life. The "dynamic tension" of these situations are teetering on "dynamic atrophy" and thus I have decided to begin deliberate action rather than letting them wither away.

The picture of the runner in the starting blocks is perhaps the best way that I can show myself how uncomfortable it can become if you simply hear, "On your mark... get set... get set... get set..." in a continual "life loop." I wouldn't want to be stuck in that position and now, I am choosing to finally "go."

With one week left to live, would I be doing what I am doing now? That's an easy one; No.

I enjoy much of the travel. Taking advantage of the time to visit Niagara Falls late at night this past week put me in a moment of deep appreciation for marrying the opportunity with the experience. That was a delight. Still, I would schedule these moments on a kinder schedule for body, mind and spirit. There is much to be gained in savoring the pleasures of life whenever given the occasion.

Therein lies "the book." I have had a book within me for a great deal of my life. I even wrote one called "The Abundance Club" over five years ago and shared it with a variety of people who said they either enjoyed it or it gave them pause to stop and think about their lives.

I never submitted it for any kind of professional or publishing consideration.

It is that kind of "success neutering" that I am placing on the "To Stop" list. What gives my soul room to expand in joy is the idea of writing the newest version of that book and going out to share it with those who are open to the ideas contained within.

Writing this now will give me all the encouragement that I need to make the process real. The finished book is sitting within and I know that I eagerly await the experience of sharing it with the world. This alone will create a life pattern that is open to always becoming more, always getting better.

Trust30, day 5: Travel

If we live truly, we shall see truly. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Not everyone wants to travel the world, but most people can identify at least one place in the world they’d like to visit before they die. Where is that place for you, and what will you do to make sure you get there?

There was a place that so intrigued me early on that I went out of my way to get travel brochures and post pictures from them all over my board, refrigerator and mirror. I did that over thirty years ago and I have yet to make that trip.

For me, the place is Tahiti.

One friend has traveled there and thanks to Facebook, I got to vicariously live the journey with her via the amazing pictures that she posted. It reawakened in me the dormant dream and now I think about it often.

To get there, I shall travel in my mind often. I shall gather all of the info in print and on the web and linger over it. I will designate a fund just to "plant the seed" of deliberate intent.

I will see it as accomplished.

Trust30, day 4: Post-it Question

That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him. Where is the master who could have taught Shakespeare? Where is the master who could have instructed Franklin, or Washington, or Bacon, or Newton? . . . Shakespeare will never be made by the study of Shakespeare. Do that which is assigned you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Identify one of your biggest challenges at the moment (ie I don’t feel passionate about my work) and turn it into a question (ie How can I do work I’m passionate about?) Write it on a post-it and put it up on your bathroom mirror or the back of your front door. After 48-hours, journal what answers came up for you and be sure to evaluate them

.

"How can I take the talent that I have (writing/speaking) and make the most of it?

Trust30, day 3: One Strong Belief

It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. - Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

The world is powered by passionate people, powerful ideas, and fearless action. What’s one strong belief you possess that isn’t shared by your closest friends or family? What inspires this belief, and what have you done to actively live it?

I would have to say that the strongest belief that I hold that isn't shared by many around me is that we are 100% responsible for creating our own world. The things that we encounter, the people that we meet and the lives that we author are totally our creation. The live that I create may be because of thoughts held either consciously or unconsciously but it does not change the fact that I accept the responsibility for my life.

I have shared this with several people over the years and some have embraced it in their own way. I always live it in this fashion; if I meet someone and this subject comes up, I will discuss it because that could be an important moment for either (or both) of us. I choose to accept that moment and go with it.

Trust30, day 2: Today

Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. The force of character is cumulative. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

If ‘the voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks,’ then it is more genuine to be present today than to recount yesterdays. How would you describe today using only one sentence? Tell today’s sentence to one other person. Repeat each day.

Today is the best choice you've got!

Trust30, day 1: 15 Minutes To Live

#Trust30 is an online initiative and 30-day writing challenge that encourages you to look within and trust yourself. Use this as an opportunity to reflect on your now, and to create direction for your future. 30 prompts from inspiring thought-leaders will guide you on your writing journey

"We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect persons." – Ralph Waldo Emerson

You just discovered you have fifteen minutes to live.

1. Set a timer for fifteen minutes.
2. Write the story that has to be written.

It's been a good life.

When I got here, I had feelings of abandonment, betrayal, intense hurt.

Now, and for some time, I've had a much better idea of what this has been all about.

I chose this; I did it all.

I wanted to know, to REALLY know and to learn at a level that is as close as one's breath and this is what I've had. And now as I wind down, with a mere 13 minutes left, I choose to call this "good."

Why? Simply because I really have captured the dream of this life that has been my life. I can't tell you in hard core evidence that I have "proof" that I can lay out and demonstrate to others. That would be important if and only if I needed to be right.

To be honest, there HAVE been times that I have SO wanted to be "right." Now I don't even know how to define what being right means. It's like trying to hit a constantly changing, ever shifting target. It is exhausting and fruitless except that it gives one an example to contrast against, to compare to.

I've been upset with myself in the past why I didn't do this, achieve that, accomplish the other... and it's all been part of a story; one that I was born into, one that I attracted and one that I help author and further along during this life. Wow, it has truly been "a trip," and it didn't take travels to Tibet, Nepal, Hawaii or anywhere else to make it all happen.

It was all inside. It was a choice, over and over again.

"All is choice." You shared that with me long ago (or so it seems,) and now with but eight minutes to go, I still exercise that choice now as I write this missive (great word!) The choice, eternal and constant, fueled everything that did, re-did or un-did events and understandings. I know I hurt some people. Others I made happy.

But I think that those meetings and the resultant happiness or unhappiness on each of our parts were again, nothing but choices. The power in those choices make up the life that we create and I DO know beyond any doubt that indeed, we DO create our own lives and far more powerfully and insidiously that we may have ever suspected. We are that powerful.

Four more minutes. I thrill that I can sit here and recall so many good and wonderful events, people, places, things and feel just as good NOW as I did when I attracted and encountered these for the first time. Isn't it great to know that I can conjure up that feeling even now in the endgame of my life? That more than anything else tells me just how good it all has been, how wonderful it is.

Lord, I sound like George Bailey as I write here! But you know what? I don't care. It matters not because it DID matter that my life has been good and that I made it far more conscious than not especially as I continued to walk forward.

Last minute. There are no goodbyes as nothing ever dies. In just a moment, I'll know that to the core of what/who I am. That seems like a good place to bid this story adieu...

Appreciation #2: Fear (A process)

It's time. I just gotta say it.

Fear just 100% sucks.

Wait, it gets even worse.

Here we go. Ready?

Everything is energy.

Everything. That includes you and me. You know that "We are all one" crap?

OK, it's not crap.

Like variations on a theme, it's this eternal creative dance, always in process and with infinite variations. And the only way to get these variations are to allow something called "contrast" into the picture. For every "good," a "bad." For every "hero," a "villain."

For every action, an equal and opposite reaction. And that's how the game stays fresh and new.

Wait, it gets better.

You, powerful energetic one, get to decide what is "good," what is "bad," in your particular variation and then you get to decide if your version is "right" and then needs to be defended against those which are "wrong."

Or maybe you'll just allow all of your infinite brethren to play out their own stories and just "let it be," as in "live and let live."

Perhaps you desire something different, something "threatening." Now understand that this little gem is a hard one to create because of who you really are.

Remember at the top; everything is energy? An interesting little notion about energy is that it can neither be created nor destroyed. It just "is."

Starting to get a glimmer about who you really are?

So to feel "threatened," one needs to take one's power and essentially use it against oneself. Look at something and imagine ("make pictures") about how bad, awful, painful, wrong, dangerous, evil, sinister (fill in your favorite negative adjective here) it really is.

Focus on it; make it really big. Have it fill all of your sight, dominate your senses. It's sort of like taking a balloon and writing a really ugly face on it with markers while it's deflated.

Now you use your breath and blow it up really big. Hold it your own hand and put it right against your face until it's huge, scary and the only thing that you can see... and forget it was your breath that filled it up and that it's your hand that's pinching the nozzle, keeping it inflated.

That's fear, sometimes noted as False Evidence Appearing Real.

Ain't that a bitch? And remember, because everything is energy and "we are all one," the world around you will agree with your assessment and rush in to give you even more scary pictures and evidence to show you how right you are in what you're holding on to.

Yeah, law of attraction and all of that "nonsense."

But before you dismiss any of this, think about experiences in your past, good or bad, and recall how they tended to get better or worse the longer you dwelled on them. I'm not interested in convincing anyone here about anything. That would be ridiculous.

Nope, my only role is to point out the dots. You'll connect them as you see fit.

Funny thing about "dots" though. You can connect them in any way that you see fit.

That's the power of choice. That's why we're never stuck... unless we think we are.

...which is why fear sucks.