Tag Archives: change

17 Feb 2014 · 12:52

Faith – Blog No. 9

faithThe bottom line is that it does not matter what you have faith in, as long as you do have faith in something.  Perhaps in these fractured times the only thing you feel comfortable having faith in, is yourself.  If that is the case, know that that is enough.  When you believe in what you can do – in your individual capacity, and as part of a collective – you harness a power that will surprise you with where it can take you, and others.  Should you wish to believe in a power higher than yourself (which is all relative, for what you find in yourself is what has existed for centuries in all of the gods, God, Allah, Dreamtime, Nature, etc, feel justified in doing so.  You are a reflection of what you find admirable in your chosen deity/deities.)  You can believe in more than one deity, if you so choose.  All the ‘good’ characteristics that you try to adopt, emulate, exist inside of you already so it matters not which ‘good’ you ultimately choose to follow, it is all the same thing, really.  That should be a comforting thought.

Faith means dedication.  It means understanding and application.  Simply believing in something and trusting its say-so is not enough, you need to do something with your faith.  Make it work for you.  That is what it is for.  Faith is not there to subjugate you, to cripple your progress, so if what you choose to believe in makes you lesser rather than greater as a human being, then perhaps you need to shuffle your belief systems a little, or change your faith.

Faith is a symbol of hope.  It keeps you striving for better, going forwards.  Faith should have no boundaries, no restrictions.  Nor should a person’s faith receive criticism or judgement from another person.  You should be able to open wide to the understanding that placing your implicit trust in something is not a weakness.  It is a strength.  For one reason or another, humans go far further in life when they believe they are supported somehow, by something, in this world.  Perhaps what you believe in is not ‘of’ this world, technically, but faith means you know it is out there and it makes a difference to your everyday, the knowing.  Faith has extraordinary power, and this power – when properly directed – can change an entire existence.

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22 Dec 2013 · 09:42

Growth – Blog No. 96

growth-aheadGrowth – when it comes to you – is not something that you should try to shrug off.  It is persistent and it will stick with you, beside you, until you allow it in and you invite it to change your circumstances.  Without growth you go nowhere.  The most common reaction to growth – initially – is resistance.  Who wants pain?  Not one among us, I am sure.  However, pain is an inevitable part of growth in most instances.  In order to stretch and reach higher, further, than you have ever reached before, you need to invite yourself to grow.  You must meet your boundaries, exceed them.

There are countless ways to grow yourself.  You can start by facing your fears.  That is usually a very effective way to develop your character and grow your human being.  Facing fears starts with acknowledging that you have them, firstly.  If you should have no fears at all, then consider yourself extremely fortunate.  Yours is the ideal space to be in.  We are all driven to that space, the place where fears are merely a considered reaction to a situation.  If you can stand outside your fears and watch them going on you will find that you are in a much better position to deal with them, to let them go.

Growing means you will need more room to keep yourself.  That can mean literally a larger space in which to confine your physical form, or more headspace to accommodate your ‘larger’ mind.  Your ‘opened’ mind.  An opened mind takes up a lot of space, it has mazes of doors that you will need to open, each of them so you can grow.  You have to be brave enough to open the doors, to walk through them.  You will change every time you do.  That is a frightening concept for some people.  It really shouldn’t be.  The more you change, the more you grow and since growth is what we are all aiming at on planet Earth – for it is through growth that we will achieve every one of our end goals – the braver you must become each time you discover that it is your turn to grow.

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23 Sep 2013 · 13:51

Temperament – Blog No. 74

553595-24219-18What is your temperament?  Do you like who it is that you are?  If you should like yourself some of the time, that is a start.  If you like who you are a great deal – yours is the right space.  You cannot like yourself when you behave badly, try as you might.  Your knowing, your moral fortitude will not allow you to.  If you have no moral compass, it must be said that no one can help you.  A moral compass (or the lack of one) is inherent.  Remember, too, that it is your choice how you behave – not another’s.  Another’s bad behaviour towards you is not permission for you to act like an arsehole.  Try not to let yourself drop your standards – or your guard – in the name of petty retaliation.  Choose your reactions; ensure that they suit the occasion.

You can lie to your heart’s content, you can make excuses for yourself and your short-comings, you can find reasons to justify your bad behaviour.  All of this is possible – and very do-able.  We all do it and we are all good at it.  Have you heard how adept you are at justifying your actions so that you can feel less responsible for bad behaviour?  It is natural to try and allocate blame somewhere – or delegate it – the need is almost instinctive.  It takes a dedicated human being to treat blame as your own bedfellow.  How often do you sit with yourself and accept responsibility for your strained relations with others, your rudeness, your intolerance?  How often will you apologise for your misdemeanours?  And I am talking about apologising to yourself, as well as to others.

Your temperament is not only your nature.  It is not just your personality.  It is your whole, your calling card in this world.  It is the reason people will find you attractive, or not.  It is why you will be successful, or not.  If you have a shit temperament, do something about it.  Your reactions are within your power.  Each of them.  If you do not like how you behave in certain situations – either avoid putting yourself in those situations or transform the way you feel about what is happening to you.  You change your viewpoint – particularly when it comes to the how and why of your behaviour(s) – and you change the way you are perceived in this world.  That can make all the difference.

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09 Jul 2013 · 09:03

Famine – Blog No. 53

The-world-should-come-together-and-help-Children-are-sufferingIt is unacceptable that there are starving people on this planet.  It is totally unacceptable that children on this planet are starving.  For a brain to develop and a body to thrive, grow strong, it needs sustenance.  Both brain and body.  When you starve children you are not just causing them hunger pains that they cannot understand but must endure, or depriving them of a childhood – for what fun can it be starving slowly to your death? – you are preventing a child the opportunity to develop its brain so that it will be a thinker in this world.  We need as many thinkers as we can get.  Each sadness in a deprived childhood is counted, measured.  These things cannot be forgotten.  They cannot be ignored.  I wish to liberate every child on this planet.  That it should be a private goal is perhaps of no consequence to anyone, but it should be.  In this day and age – as educated as we are – we should all want the same thing.  I understand there are many un-free adults, too, and these do not go unnoticed, however – the children should be our immediate concern because they are our future.  Until the children are out of chains – mentally, physically, spiritually – this world is arrested; silenced by its own demise.  We cannot just sit and watch the world go to shit.  We have to do something about the state of affairs on this planet we all call home.  Earth.  We are each able to do something to make the world better.  We just need to THINK right.  When you are determined to find solutions to the world’s problems, you will find them.  The more people that contribute to the collective in terms of positive, forward-thinking – the better off this world’s future is going to be.  We should all care about what the future is going to look like – even if you do not have children you should care.  We all possess the power of independent thinking and we can choose to think about what we like.  There is no government that can make you think one way or another.  There is no man who can force you to have his thoughts.  You have to think for yourself.  Do not accept things in this world that you do not like.  Think about what you like and what you do not like.  Concentrate on changing those things you don’t like – first in your own life and then in your community.  Do not accept that as one person you cannot make a difference.  You can.  You just have to want to try.

If you can vote – vote.  Being lazy in a democracy is a disgrace.  If you can make sandwiches for the homeless people then make them – do you know how grateful a homeless person is to receive anything at all?  Imagine for one minute that it was you that was sleeping on a dirty piece of cardboard on the sidewalk?  Where is your self-esteem when you must sleep on the pavement?  It is not in a good place.  When your self-esteem is not in a good place, your thinking is not as big as it should be.  Can you imagine having no fixed place to live – drifting up and down side streets and holing up in doorways?  Your world becomes very small.  You forget to dream.  This world cannot do without dreams, or dreamers.  The dreams of the pure mind are dreams worth harvesting for the future.  Pure thought comes best in children that have not been abused, exploited or starved.  How can we stop the bureaucracy and corruption that keeps food from people that need it?  There is enough food on Earth to feed everybody – it just needs to be spread around a bit better.  It’s time the aid agencies actually took accountability and changed the way their industry works.  You cannot stand by and watch corruption steal maize meal from its population.  You protest against conditions as they are.  Who better to say something than someone right inside the situation itself?  I cannot understand how people can turn a blind eye.  In your next incarnation you could be the one starving.  Think about it.  The sooner we end suffering the sooner we will stop suffering, ourselves.  We are a reflection of our environment, we are what is going on around us.  How can you pretend not to see that?

ZANU PF needs to stop harrassing the people trying to provide aid to the Zimbabweans.  Can those people forget their idiotic politics for one minute and concentrate on themselves as humans?  They are not Mugabe’s people.  They never were.  It is time the Zimbabweans were liberated.  Please spare them a thought in your everyday.  They are a beautiful, long-suffering people.  They need the world’s help.  The governments cannot be bothered to offer anything more than lip-service to a Zimbabwe in strife and although this lip-service does help open the world’s eyes, it needs action to back up the words.  The Zimbabweans need supervision during their July elections.  It is simple.  Why can the international community not put together an army of overseers and send them to Zimbabwe to watch who the people really want in power?  Mugabe is so scared of the real result he cheats every time.  He stuffs the ballot boxes and claims victory and everyone knows – again – that the man is lying.  They are so used to their leader lying that they cannot even believe their reality any longer.  Mugabe is morally bankrupt and he is responsible for a genocide.  Did the world forget that?  I think you would be tired of your government being in power for 30 years – can you even imagine it?  The man is old and his mind is fried.  He is delusional at best and the country could do with a change.  They deserve a change.  It would be good to see a new political party starting, one that can inspire hope.  The MDC dog has been whipped by Zanu PF and it stands with its tail between its legs.  You cannot feel inspired by a party like that.  You need a party that can bring you what you want.  I think every Zimbabwean knows that they need change.  In this age of information sharing they see clearly where their future lies if they are forced to follow the same path they have been following for 30 years.  They must change their pace, adjust their thinking.  There is too much fear in Zimbabwe.  She is crumbling under her own load.  She needs to stand back and see herself for who she is.  She is Zimbabwe.  A mighty nation of warriors, heroes.  Their energy as a people is hard not to love the first time you experience it.  They are an incredibly special people.  Imagine that the minds of all those Africans were free to think about something other than their unfortunate circumstances?  The collective unconscious would swell with their contribution.  They have an extraordinary cultural heritage to share and that sharing is valuable sharing.  Their thoughts are like prayer flags in the wind.  They send good vibes out into the world.  We could do more to help them stand up for themselves.

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17 Jun 2013 · 08:51

Hate vs Love – Blog No. 48

love_and_hate_by_baro24Imagine these two entities – hate and love – crashing into each other.  In this world, which would wield greater power?  Considering that hate vibes are resonating out there in the astonishing numbers that they are, I think love would take quite a hit should they converge.  Like a kick in the solar plexus.  I choose to believe that there is more love in our world than hate.  I think the love will overwhelm the hate in due course and equilibrium will be restored.  Before that happens, there is a lot of work to do.  There is a lot of giving to do.  Start giving to the world today if you do not already contribute to its wellbeing.  It is easy.  Tidy your thoughts.  Clean up your mind, get the hate you have simmering inside of you OUT.  The way to do that is to purge yourself of its negative energy.  Pull it into view and look at it, assess the energy you allocate to hating.  Would that energy not be better spent elsewhere?  You have to ask yourself why you want to hate.  Why do you choose to be negative when positive is a choice you can make?

Hating circumstance is not the end of the world, hating a certain food is not a problem.  Hating people is a problem.  People-hating people are a problem.  It is sometimes hard not to hate.  I hate idiots.  It has to be said.  But each time I encounter an idiot I try to remind myself that they are probably ignorant and/or emotionally immature.  That does not make me much more tolerant of them, but it does stop me from wasting too much thought-time on their stupidity.  Hating personally is a dangerous game to play.  When you will assassinate another’s character you need to take yourself in hand.  What do you achieve when you spend time judging other people for the way they choose to live their lives?  Their lives are nothing to do with you.  When this world conquers its tendency to try and manage others’ affairs through manipulation or criticism we will all be better off.  Since when was it your business to make another’s life a misery by imposing your judgement on their days?  Observe what is going on in your environment instead of judging it.  Do not attach values to happenings.  Allow happenings to happen and allow people to be.  A lot of people are doing the best they can.  Watch people and try to understand what motivates them.  With some people it is easy – nothing motivates them.  Do not waste your time on these people.  Spend your time on and with people who are motivated for change.  Those who do not want to hear of change – of improvement – will be left behind in the rush to the future.  Should you wish to be left behind then you know exactly what you must do.

Love always wins.  You can take comfort in that thought if you have no other thoughts in which to take comfort.  If you have only got negative thoughts you need to change your life by changing the way you think about things.  Instead of thinking about what you hate in someone, think about how it must be for them to live with themselves.  When you are a shitty person your life is not easy.  Keep your bad vibes to yourself where possible.  Nobody else wants them and just keep in mind that when you send them out, they return to slap you on the back of the head.  Guaranteed.  So.  Don’t act like an idiot.  Don’t think like an idiot.  Leave people to their stories.  We all have them.

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17 May 2013 · 09:26

Change – Blog No. 39

changeSome of us are bred to embrace change.  Others are afraid.  Change is a remarkable leveller and it should be employed by all of us to prevent our getting complacent.  Complacency is not something to aspire to.  There is a point at which change becomes destructive, however, and so we need to know how to manage its happening.  Try not to make dramatic changes too often.  Rather go at the process slowly, taking time to adjust to whatever it is that is new to you before you take on another set of circumstances.  The same applies to your thinking.  In order to change your thinking – and this is advisable for 2013, the year of new beginnings – you need to go at it slowly.  Expect resistance from your old ideals and thought processes.  Getting your mind to tidy itself up is a challenging task, but one that is worth doing.  If you have help in the shape of a good listener who can assist you with the exorcism of bad memories, make use of their facility.  Open your heart for a moment to someone you can trust with its vulnerabilities.  Bad memories take up a lot of mind space.  They waste a lot of mind space.  Take them out and look at them, then decide how best to dispose of them.  You will never be rid of them entirely, but you can put them into storage once you have worked out their pain.  Do not be afraid to change your mind.  Never be afraid to change your mind.  If it is acceptable for women to be changeable, then it is acceptable for men to be changeable.  This is a world in which we work towards the ideal of equality, is it not?

Imagine changing from a backward-thinker to a forward-planner.  Stranger things have happened.  They say the future belongs to the dreamers.  They are not far wrong.  The dreamers each have a guarantee.  Their futures will happen as they imagine them.  It is the easiest concept to grasp.  Where you put your headspace is where you will find yourself.  You are what you think.  And since you are always becoming – you are always changing.  You cannot escape it.

Let life change you.  The safest way to go forwards (and forwards is a good way to be going) is to be adaptable.  When you can watch life unfolding in front of your eyes and negotiate its rapids as smoothly as you can manage its meanderings, then you know you are being adaptable.  Adaptable is flexible.  When you resist change you block your feng shui.  Any blockage in Nature is a problem.  You must not restrict your own flow.  Let life come to you and take its deliveries with grace, humility.  Then let them go.  Nothing is yours to hold on to.  Feel that you are a part of the flow and know then that you have surrendered to the way of things.  Surrender is good when it lessens stress.  It is not defeat.  Be sure that what you surrender to – if you are able to give yourself up – is worthy of your burdens.  I think Jesus is tired of carrying the load and besides, I do not see that piling your sins on the shoulders of a dead man is in any way helpful to you in the long run.  All the Jesus-believers need to give the guy a break and take accountability for themselves.  That will be hard at first, when you are used to delegating responsibility for your behaviour to God or Jesus.  I wonder what will happen when the bottom falls out of the church?  It will fall.  It is just a matter of time.  I wonder then whether the myriad believers will turn on their priests the way the Jews turned on Jesus?  I think there will be too many questions without answers.  That is the church’s problem now – they have a book of songs to explain life to their children.  How helpful is it in this day and age to be taught from the bible?  It is not helpful.  There are many more reliable sources to use when training the minds of our today-children.

 

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08 Apr 2013 · 09:18

How real are you? – Blog No. 30

inner-childHow seriously do you take yourself?  I hope that you pay yourself due attention.  Know when to be serious about your life, but know that if you are too serious you run the risk of missing the point of being.  We are also on this planet to play.  Each of us humans has a child inside of us that requires indulgence and parenting.  Even if you have no children of your own, realise that you are still a parent.  You are a parent to yourself.  You cannot avoid this role.  That voice you hear nagging in your head, that chase you feel in yourself when you are doing right, or wrong, that is part of being responsible for your person.  Do you respect your inner parent?  How do you respond to its criticism?  Do you hear criticism, or do you hear words of love and encouragement?  Listen and decide.  What type of parent are you?  Analyse your patterns and your proclivities.  As both child, and parent.  You will see in your style of parenting your understanding of yourself.  You want to understand yourself, your inner child.  You will find in the child your shelved dreams.  Your core beliefs.  How you respond to the world of your inner child is of grave consequence.  Should you show no respect for its evidence you will find yourself relying solely on your conditioning to get you by in this life of trials.  The child has no qualms about leaving you to your own devices.  It has enough with which to occupy itself.  Should you ignore it, it will ignore you.  A warning – do not rely on your conditioning.  It is not who you are.  It is who you have learned to be and in that you may as well be an automaton.  Be who you are.  Work around that which is already in you – your conditioning.  It is essential if we wish to meet our real selves.  Separate from what you know.  Find yourself in the unknown.

Your parent is a construct.  Understand that. You have built it into what it is.  Now take its essence and mould it to the kind of parent you know your inner child needs.  Make the conscious choice to give yourself what is necessary to bring out your best.  That is in your power.  It is good to know you have power.  Use it.

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04 Feb 2013 · 09:30

Love is … – Blog No. 12

mozart-love-soul-geniusI have asked of others – many a time – a definition of love. If anyone knows one comprehensive definition, please give it to me. And God is Love does not qualify. It’s too bland, and besides, before you can use that statement you have to know who or what God is about. Since none of us know that, exactly, we are precluded from using the statement sweepingly until we gain a better understanding. What love is, is pure and sweet and simple. Love, too, is dark and deep and complex. The dark is necessary for the light. Love is like a compound eye. It has that many facets. Love is not blind. You are not blind to another’s faults. You can pretend to yourself and whomever else you are trying to convince that they are not there, but the truth is you see them. And each one, though on some level it may disappoint, is not something for you to judge or criticise. It is something for you to celebrate. It means – thank goodness – that that person is like you. We share common traits. In effect, we are one. Find solace in our similarities, for they are there and they are too numerous to count. I never yet met a perfect person – and I am quite relieved. I do not for one minute believe that any god watching over us would expect us to be flawless. Is God flawless? Who knows. Maybe he made some mistakes in his time. I would like to think so, half of our human charm is in our imperfections. Our mistakes help define us as individuals, as much as our successes do. Take note of why you choose what you do – and take note, too, if you will not learn from your mistakes. If you learn something from each mistake then its job is done. But, if you fail to change something about yourself – whether it be your perception, your perspective or your opinion – the same mistakes will visit you time and again. They will roll around and trip you until you DO something differently. That is the cycle of life. We will be taught until we learn. So learn to think differently. That is in your control. If God is out there watching us, he is very patient. I think he is waiting for us to stop, and focus on what matters.

What can we shift in our own lives to make space for a change? What out-moded thinking can we get rid of? We can get rid of our determination to judge other people. We spend too much time being the guardians of others’ fates. We interfere in business that is not ours to comment upon. It is important to understand that in actuality we have nothing to do with another’s fate. Our fates are our own. We are the transcribers of our own scripts, the creators of our own landscapes. If you choose to bind yourself to another’s fate, that is your business. You reserve that right. We are bound across countless paths in our lifetimes and on each we can find freedom, we just have to see what it is that we have left to learn. And there is always, always, something left to learn.

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