Connect Yourself With Nature Quotes

Look at the evils of the world around you and protect yourself from them. Our teachers give all the wrong messages to our youth, since they take away the natural flare from the soul. Take it from me that all knowledge is useless until it is connected with your life, because the purpose of knowledge is nothing but to show you the splendors of yourself!

True Love is when you are able to see yourself in another, when you recognize that there is no separation between you and any other Being in the Universe.

Step outside for a while - calm your mind. It is better to hug a tree than to bang your head against a wall continually

The way to control circumstances is to control the forces within yourself to make a greater man of yourself, and as you become greater and more competent, you will naturally gravitate into better circumstances. In this connection, we should remember that like attracts like. If you want that which is better, make yourself better. If you want to realize the ideal, make yourself more ideal. If you want better friends, make yourself a better friend. If you want to associate with people of worth, make yourself more worthy. If you want to meet that which is agreeable, make yourself more agreeable. If you want to enter conditions and circumstances that are more pleasing, make yourself more pleasing. In brief, whatever you want, produce that something in yourself, and you will positively gravitate towards the corresponding conditions in the external world.

Be ahead of all parting, as if it had already happened, like winter, which even now is passing. For beneath the winter is a winter so endless that to survive it at all is a triumph of the heart. Be forever dead in Eurydice, and climb back singing. Climb praising as you return to connection. Here among the disappearing, in the realm of the transient, be a ringing glass that shatters as it rings. Be. And, at the same time, know what it is not to be. The emptiness inside you allows you to vibrate in full resonance with your world. Use it for once. To all that has run its course, and to the vast unsayable numbers of beings abounding in Nature, add yourself gladly, and cancel the cost.

I do not know, really, how we will survive without places like the Inner Gorge of the Grand Canyon to visit. Once in a lifetime, even, is enough. To feel the stripping down, an ebb of the press of conventional time, a radical change of proportion, an unspoken respect for others that elicits keen emotional pleasure, a quick intimate pounding of the heart. The living of life, any life, involves great and private pain, much of which we share with no one. In such places as the Inner Gorge the pain trails away from us. It is not so quiet there or so removed that you can hear yourself think, that you would even wish to; that comes later. You can hear your heart beat. That comes first.

Witchcraft is, I believe, the practice of entering into relation with the world, of exerting your will in it and among it, and learning how to work with it in ways that are fruitful for yourself and the world.

You don't need to be deep in order to be called intellectual. You need to create connectivity with the people by using the language that they can understand. You don't need to be an artist, because it comes out naturally. You don't need to be critic and poet, because what matters is that you believe in yourself. You just don't need to be envious for the happiness of other people. Throw all your bitterness away. Peace be with you!

To begin to understand your Soul as an integral part of yourself and begin to connect with your Soul as a part of your full being and your true nature, is the beginning of wisdom and the portal to true joy.

Do you think yourself a string too short to save? Do you think that you are lank and straight, a linear bit with no connection fore or aft? Fear not your insignificance. Nature has a drawer for you. Yes, nature garners all the string too short to save, and mice visit that drawer. Here’s nesting material! Yes, you will be interwoven, be it now or later.

We are like waves in the ocean, each with a unique character and quality on the surface, but deep down we are eternally connected to one another and to the ocean as a whole. If you practice looking beyond the surface of appearances, you will begin to see the true Being that lies within each form. You will see your Consciousness looking through the eyes of another, and it is when you see yourself in another that you cannot help but develop compassion for them; because in Truth, there is no “them,” there is only YOU, experiencing yourself from an inconceivable amount of perspectives.

Buddha is our inherent nature—our buddha nature—and what that means is that if you’re going to grow up fully, the way that it happens is that you begin to connect with the intelligence that you already have. It’s not like some intelligence that’s going to be transplanted into you. If you’re going to be fully mature, you will no longer be imprisoned in the childhood feeling that you always need to protect yourself or shield yourself because things are too harsh. If you’re going to be a grown-up—which I would define as being completely at home in your world no matter how difficult the situation—it’s because you will allow something that’s already in you to be nurtured. You allow it to grow, you allow it to come out, instead of all the time shielding it and protecting it and keeping it buried. Someone once told me, “When you feel afraid, that’s ‘fearful buddha.’” That could be applied to whatever you feel. Maybe anger is your thing. You just go out of control and you see red, and the next thing you know you’re yelling or throwing something or hitting someone. At that time, begin to accept the fact that that’s “enraged buddha.” If you feel jealous, that’s “jealous buddha.” If you have indigestion, that’s “buddha with heartburn.” If you’re happy, “happy buddha”; if bored, “bored buddha.” In other words, anything that you can experience or think is worthy of compassion; anything you could think or feel is worthy of appreciation.

Everybody has a natural gift. When you tap into whatever your gift is that will allow you to connect organically with others and will lead to more positive outcomes in your life.

God will not be tolerated. He instructs us to worship and fear Him. In our world, where hundreds of things distract us from God, we have to intentionally and consistently remind ourselves of Him. Because we don’t often think about the reality of who God is, we quickly forget that He is worthy to be worshiped and loved. We are to fear Him. The answer to each of these questions is simply this: because He’s God. He has more of a right to ask us why so many people are starving. As much as we want God to explain himself to us, His creation, we are in no place to demand that He give an account to us. Can you worship a God who isn’t obligated to explain His actions to you? Could it be your arrogance that makes you think God owes you an explanation? If God is truly the greatest good on this earth, would He be loving us if He didn’t draw us toward what is best for us (even if that happens to be Himself)? Doesn’t His courting, luring, pushing, calling, and even “threatening” demonstrate His love? If He didn’t do all of that, wouldn’t we accuse Him of being unloving in the end, when all things are revealed? Has your relationship with God actually changed the way you live? Do you see evidence of God’s kingdom in your life? Or are you choking it out slowly by spending too much time, energy, money, and thought on the things of this world? Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. Jesus’ call to commitment is clear: He wants all or nothing. Our greatest fear as individuals and as a church should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter. If life is a river, then pursuing Christ requires swimming upstream. When we stop swimming, or actively following Him, we automatically begin to be swept downstream. How could we think for even a second that something on this puny little earth compares to the Creator and Sustainer and Savior of it all? True faith means holding nothing back; it bets everything on the hope of eternity. When you are truly in love, you go to great lengths to be with the one you love. You’ll drive for hours to be together, even if it’s only for a short while. You don’t mind staying up late to talk. Walking in the rain is romantic, not annoying. You’ll willingly spend a small fortune on the one you’re crazy about. When you are apart from each other, it’s painful, even miserable. He or she is all you think about; you jump at any chance to be together. There is nothing better than giving up everything and stepping into a passionate love relationship with God, the God of the universe who made galaxies, leaves, laughter, and me and you. Do you recognize the foolishness of seeking fulfillment outside of Him? Are you ready and willing to make yourself nothing? To take the very nature of a servant? To be obedient unto death? True love requires sacrifice. What are you doing right now that requires faith? God doesn’t call us to be comfortable. If one person “wastes” away his day by spending hours connecting with God, and the other person believes he is too busy or has better things to do than worship the Creator and Sustainer, who is the crazy one? Am I loving my neighbor and my God by living where I live, by driving what I drive, by talking how I talk?” If I stop pursuing Christ, I am letting our relationship deteriorate. The way we live out our days is the way we will live our lives. What will people say about your life in heaven? Will people speak of God’s work and glory through you? And even more important, how will you answer the King when He says, “What did you do with what I gave you?

Be forever dead in Eurydice, and climb back singing. Climb praising as you return to connection. Here among the disappearing, in the realm of the transient, be a ringing glass that shatters as it rings. Be. And know as well the need to not be: let that ground of all that changes bring you to completion now. To all that has run its course, and to the vast unsayable numbers of beings abounding in Nature, add yourself gladly, and cancel the cost. Sonnets to Orpheus II, 13

Empathy, the Greeks believed, was a source of strength, not softness; the more you recognized yourself in others and connected with their distress, the more endurance, wisdom, cunning, and determination you could tap into.

Understand: as an individual you cannot stop the tide of fantasy and escapism sweeping a culture. But you can stand as an individual bulwark to this trend and create power for yourself. You were born with the greatest weapon in all of nature—the rational, conscious mind. It has the power to expand your vision far and wide, giving you the unique capacity to distinguish patterns in events, learn from the past, glimpse into the future, see through appearances. Circumstances are conspiring to dull that weapon and render it useless by turning you inward and making you afraid of reality. Consider it war. You must fight this tendency as best you can and move in the opposite direction. You must turn outward and become a keen observer of all that is around you. You are doing battle against all the fantasies that are thrown at you. You are tightening your connection to the environment. You want clarity, not escape and confusion. Moving in this direction will instantly bring you power among so many dreamers.

Heroes aren’t perfect; with a god as one parent and a mortal as the other, they’re perpetually teetering between two destinies. What tips them toward greatness is a sidekick, a human connection who helps turn the spigot on the power of compassion. Empathy, the Greeks believed, was a source of strength, not softness; the more you recognized yourself in others and connected with their distress, the more endurance, wisdom, cunning, and determination you could tap into.

You are not a small and unimportant creature confined to the form of this physical body, contrary to popular belief. At the core of your being you are pure awareness, and this awareness is the same source from which everything in the Universe arises, exists as, and returns to. Consciousness is the dimension of yourself that you have forgotten you are, and of which you long to return to.

I think about Rilke, who said that it's the questions that move us, not the answers. As a writer I believe it is our task, our responsibility, to hold the mirror up to social injustices that we see and to create a prayer of beauty. The questions serve us in that capacity. Pico Iyer describes his writing as "intimate letters to a stranger," and I think that is what the writing process is. It begins with a question, and then you follow this path of exploration. ... I write out of my questions. Hopefully, if we write out of our humanity, our vulnerable nature, then some chord is struck with a reader and we touch on the page. I know that is why I read, to find those parts of myself in a story that I cannot turn away from. The writers who move me are the ones who create beauty and truth out of their sufferings, their yearnings, their discoveries. It is what I call the patience of words born out of the search. ... Perhaps as writers we are really storytellers, finding that golden thread that connects us to the past, present, and future at once. I love language and landscape. For me, writing is the correspondence between these two passions. It is difficult to ever see yourself. I don't know how I've developed or grown as a writer. I hope I am continuing to take risks on the page. I hope I am continuing to ask the hard questions of myself. If we are attentive to the world and to those around us, I believe we will be attentive on the page. Writing is about presence. I want to be fully present wherever I am, alive to the pulse just beneath the skin. I want to dare to speak "the language women speak when there's no one around to correct them".

You know that feeling of invincibility you sometimes get, especially when young and testing yourself - well that could be because actually know deep down that we are indeed eternal. We come into this world to live a life, to experience it, from somewhere else, some other plane, but we are programmed by all around us to deny or forget this - until one day we may remember again. That feeling of blissful reconnection with our source can be invoked through nature, beautiful writing or art or music, any detailed craft or work of discovery or personal dedication, meditation or other mentally balancing practice, or even through religious experience if there is a pure communion (not a pretence of it). But we should not yearn to return too soon, we should accept that we have come here for the duration of each life, and revel in the chance to learn and grow on this splendid planet. We can draw a deep sense of being-ness. peace, and love from this connection, which will sustain us through any trial. Once nurtured, this becomes stronger than any other connection, so of course our relationships here are most joyful when they allow us the personal freedom to spend time developing and celebrating that connection. Our deepest friendships form with those we can share such time and experiences with - discussing, meditating, immersing ourselves in nature, or creating our music, art, written or other works. Our journeys here are voyages of discovery, opening out the wonders within and all around. What better companions could we have than those who are able to fully share in such delights with us?

When you are in tune with nature, you stop seeing birds as birds; trees as trees; humans as humans. They all become a vast extension of yourself.

Whenever you enjoy the bounties of nature like the sunrise or a blooming flower you are connecting yourself with the pure potentiality.

[When the negative mind is neutralized through meditation], the body is set free to do what nature designed it to do: repair itself.

This is the goal of prophecy: to connect people to the empowering nature of God so they can become like him and display his marvelous nature to all the earth.

When you connect with nature, you will create yourself.

The surest sign that you’re on the right track with someone is when both your connection and communication are easy and natural – not forced or purposely delayed.

The GREY CHARACTER (540-400) Don’t be disappointed at all. You are the confusing sort. One which makes people wonder if they like you or not. Your presence influences other’s life. You help the protagonists develop and become who they are. You can also break the protagonist so use your powers. You showcase the natural fabric of human nature because nobody is purely good or evil.  You don’t have the habit of forming deeper connections but you leave an impact.

Friluftsliv is about communing with nature and with yourself, and about unburdening oneself from anything but being present. It's about disconnecting from the day-to-day in order to connect with something older, wilder, and larger.

probably heard that math is the language of science, or the language of Nature is mathematics. Well, it’s true. The more we understand the universe, the more we discover its mathematical connections. Flowers have spirals that line up with a special sequence of numbers (called Fibonacci numbers) that you can understand and generate yourself. Seashells form in perfect mathematical curves (logarithmic spirals) that come from a chemical balance. Star clusters tug on

This witnessing consciousness, this formless dimension of yourself, is the awareness in which your experience happens, yet it remains untouched by this experience at all times. It is similar to the background of white on which you are reading these words. This white background allows any and every word to exist within it, yet it is not confined to any of these words. Similarly, your awareness allows any and every form to exist within it, but it is not bound to any of these forms.

What Dad taught me above all else, and did so utterly unconsciously, was why people like him became Tories. He had been poor. He was working class. He aspired to be middle class. He worked hard, made it on his merits, and wanted his children to do even better than him. He thought – as did many others of his generation – that the logical outcome of this striving, born of this attitude, was to be a Tory. Indeed, it was part of the package. You made it; you were a Tory: two sides of the same coin. It became my political ambition to break that connection, and replace it with a different currency. You are compassionate; you care about those less fortunate than yourself; you believe in society as well as the individual. You can be Labour. You can be successful and care; ambitious and compassionate; a meritocrat and a progressive. These are entirely compatible ways of making sure progress happens; and they answer the realistic, not utopian, claims of human nature.

With your deliberate intention and some practice, you will not only have an awareness of your relationship with your NonPhysical Self, but you will be able to maintain a constant vibrational alignment with that Non-Physical Self. We call that conscious state of deliberate vibrational alignment with your Source Energy … the Art of Allowing. It is the art of allowing the fullness of who you are to be present in this powerful Leading-Edge moment. Whenever you achieve this wonderful Connection, you feel more alive; you feel eagerness, passion, love, appreciation, clarity, vitality, and enthusiasm. In other words, you allow yourself the benefit of all that you have become, to be present in this Leading-Edge moment of creation. It is the optimal creative experience; it is the optimal expression of life—and it is your most natural state of being. So

Exploring Self-Compassion Through Letter Writing PART ONE Everybody has something about themselves that they don’t like; something that causes them to feel shame, to feel insecure or not “good enough.” It is the human condition to be imperfect, and feelings of failure and inadequacy are part of the experience of living. Try thinking about an issue that tends to make you feel inadequate or bad about yourself (physical appearance, work or relationship issues, etc.). How does this aspect of yourself make you feel inside—scared, sad, depressed, insecure, angry? What emotions come up for you when you think about this aspect of yourself? Please try to be as emotionally honest as possible and to avoid repressing any feelings, while at the same time not being melodramatic. Try to just feel your emotions exactly as they are—no more, no less. PART TWO Now think about an imaginary friend who is unconditionally loving, accepting, kind, and compassionate. Imagine that this friend can see all your strengths and all your weaknesses, including the aspect of yourself you have just been thinking about. Reflect upon what this friend feels toward you, and how you are loved and accepted exactly as you are, with all your very human imperfections. This friend recognizes the limits of human nature and is kind and forgiving toward you. In his/her great wisdom this friend understands your life history and the millions of things that have happened in your life to create you as you are in this moment. Your particular inadequacy is connected to so many things you didn’t necessarily choose: your genes, your family history, life circumstances—things that were outside of your control. Write a letter to yourself from the perspective of this imaginary friend—focusing on the perceived inadequacy you tend to judge yourself for. What would this friend say to you about your “flaw” from the perspective of unlimited compassion? How would this friend convey the deep compassion he/she feels for you, especially for the discomfort you feel when you judge yourself so harshly? What would this friend write in order to remind you that you are only human, that all people have both strengths and weaknesses? And if you think this friend would suggest possible changes you should make, how would these suggestions embody feelings of unconditional understanding and compassion? As you write to yourself from the perspective of this imaginary friend, try to infuse your letter with a strong sense of the person’s acceptance, kindness, caring, and desire for your health and happiness. After writing the letter, put it down for a little while. Then come back and read it again, really letting the words sink in. Feel the compassion as it pours into you, soothing and comforting you like a cool breeze on a hot day. Love, connection, and acceptance are your birthright. To claim them you need only look within yourself.

deep within us, there is a direct connection to the Divine. There is a part of our being that is beyond the personal self. You can consciously choose to identify with that part, rather than with the psyche or the body. When you do this, a natural transformation begins to take place within you.

Like our other needs, meaning is an inherent expectation. Its denial has dire consequences. Far from a purely psychological need, our hormonees and nervous systems clock its presence or absence. As a medical study in 2020 found, the "presence [of] and search for meaning in life are important for health and well-being." Simply put, the more meaningful you find your life, the better your measures of mental and physical health are likely to be. It is itself a sign of the times that we even need such studies to confirm what our experience of life teaches. When do you feel happier, more fulfilled, more viscerally at ease: when you extend yourself to help and connect with others, or when you are focused on burnishing the importance of your little egoic self? We all know the answer, and yet somehow what we know doesn't always carry the day. Corporations are ingenious at exploiting people's needs without actually meeting them. Naomi Klein, in her book No Logo, made vividly clear how big business began in the 1980s to home in on people's natural desire to belong to something larger than themselves. Brand-aware companies such as Nike, Lululemon, and the Body Shop are marketing much more than products: they sell meaning, identification, and an almost religious sense of belonging through association with their brand. "That pressuposes a kind of emptiness and yearning in people," I suggested when I interviewed the prolific author and activist. "Yes," Klein replied. "They tap into a longing and a need for belonging, and they do it by exploiting the insight that just selling running shoes isn't enough. We humans want to be part of a transcendent project.

Everything in the universe is connected, a fact long known by astrologers but now being recognized by scientists using quantum mechanics, which suggests that every atom affects other atoms. In quantum physics, everything is made of waves and particles and works according to entanglement theory, which suggests that no particle is entirely independent. In a nutshell, everything in the universe works together and the movements of the cosmic bodies activate energy within us and the natural world. In other words, we are entangled with the entire universe. All the energies intertwine in an intricate dance of planetary magic and science, and the language of astrology interprets that dance.

If you need to visualize the soul, think of it as a cross between a wolf howl, a photon, and a dribble of dark molasses. But what it really is, as near as I can tell, is a packet of information. It’s a program, a piece of hyperspatial software designed explicitly to interface with the Mystery. Not a mystery, mind you, the Mystery. The one that can never be solved. To one degree or another, everybody is connected to the Mystery, and everybody secretly yearns to expand the connection. That requires expanding the soul. These things can enlarge the soul: laughter, danger, imagination, meditation, wild nature, passion, compassion, psychedelics, beauty, iconoclasm, and driving around in the rain with the top down. These things can diminish it: fear, bitterness, blandness, trendiness, egotism, violence, corruption, ignorance, grasping, shining, and eating ketchup on cottage cheese. Data in our psychic program is often nonlinear, nonhierarchical, archaic, alive, and teeming with paradox. Simply booting up is a challenge, if not for no other reason than that most of us find acknowledging the unknowable and monitoring its intrusions upon the familiar and mundane more than a little embarrassing. But say you’ve inflated your soul to the size of a beach ball and it’s soaking into the Mystery like wine into a mattress. What have you accomplished? Well, long term, you may have prepared yourself for a successful metamorphosis, an almost inconceivable transformation to be precipitated by your death or by some great worldwide eschatological whoopjamboreehoo. You may have. No one can say for sure. More immediately, by waxing soulful you will have granted yourself the possibility of ecstatic participation in what the ancients considered a divinely animated universe. And on a day to day basis, folks, it doesn’t get any better than that.

Pretty things can be denied when it is beauty that comes from a place inside. Your outer appearance may have its place but to walk in beauty is to walk in grace. So lift your confidence to gain inner merit, then walk in beauty and connect to your spirit. Embellish yourself with art for fun, it enhances, inspires and in beauty, YOU RUN!" Maiara, The Little People Journey into the Mystic Sea

The people close to you influence your outlook, your values, how you spend your time, and how you treat other people. In other words, who you hang out with matters. If you are consistently in the company of someone who gossips, for example, it’s likely you’ll gossip. If you live with someone who is depressed, in my experience you are likely to become depressed. Spending time with positive, uplifting people will make you feel positive and hopeful. If you want to improve your attitude and conduct, spend time with someone whose conduct and values you admire. Emulate his or her behavior, and you will likely find it rubs off! You’ll notice yourself avoiding actions and statements that might cause disapproval in the person you admire. By the same token, you find yourself naturally guided toward better, more life-affirming, behavior.

Anger is a completely natural emotion. It’s a strong signal that our needs aren’t being met. Evolutionarily it protects us when we perceive a threat in our environment. The destructive effects of anger come from how we handle it, not from the anger itself. When we can differentiate the stories of blame from our unmet needs, we can express ourselves more constructively. Feeling “manipulated” or “betrayed” indicates that your emotions are colored by an interpretation about the other person’s intentions. To honor the intensity of your experience without getting entangled in the blame game, see those words as information that points back to your feelings and needs. Investigate what’s in your heart. When you tell yourself, “I’m being manipulated,” how do you feel on the inside? What do you need? Once this is clear, work on conveying the depth of your feelings without blame. Express the rawness of your emotions and connect them to what matters to you. If you can’t find other words (and if you think the other person will understand), you could take responsibility for the blame by saying something such as, “I’m telling myself a story that you betrayed me.” This indicates your subjective interpretation while leaving space for the other person’s experience.

What, in fact, do we know about the peak experience? Well, to begin with, we know one thing that puts us several steps ahead of the most penetrating thinkers of the 19th century: that P.E’.s are not a matter of pure good luck or grace. They don’t come and go as they please, leaving ‘this dim, vast vale of tears vacant and desolate’. Like rainbows, peak experiences are governed by definite laws. They are ‘intentional’. And that statement suddenly gains in significance when we remember Thorndike’s discovery that the effect of positive stimuli is far more powerful and far reaching than that of negative stimuli. His first statement of the law of effect was simply that situations that elicit positive reactions tend to produce continuance of positive reactions, while situations that elicit negative or avoidance reactions tend to produce continuance of these. It was later that he came to realise that positive reactions build-up stronger response patterns than negative ones. In other words, positive responses are more intentional than negative ones. Which is another way of saying that if you want a positive reaction (or a peak experience), your best chance of obtaining it is by putting yourself into an active, purposive frame of mind. The opposite of the peak experience—sudden depression, fatigue, even the ‘panic fear’ that swept William James to the edge of insanity—is the outcome of passivity. This cannot be overemphasised. Depression—or neurosis—need not have a positive cause (childhood traumas, etc.). It is the natural outcome of negative passivity. The peak experience is the outcome of an intentional attitude. ‘Feedback’ from my activities depends upon the degree of deliberately calculated purpose I put into them, not upon some occult law connected with the activity itself. . . . A healthy, perfectly adjusted human being would slide smoothly into gear, perform whatever has to be done with perfect economy of energy, then recover lost energy in a state of serene relaxation. Most human beings are not healthy or well adjusted. Their activity is full of strain and nervous tension, and their relaxation hovers on the edge of anxiety. They fail to put enough effort—enough seriousness—into their activity, and they fail to withdraw enough effort from their relaxation. Moods of serenity descend upon them—if at all—by chance; perhaps after some crisis, or in peaceful surroundings with pleasant associations. Their main trouble is that they have no idea of what can be achieved by a certain kind of mental effort. And this is perhaps the place to point out that although mystical contemplation is as old as religion, it is only in the past two centuries that it has played a major role in European culture. It was the group of writers we call the romantics who discovered that a man contemplating a waterfall or a mountain peak can suddenly feel ‘godlike’, as if the soul had expanded. The world is seen from a ‘bird’s eye view’ instead of a worm’s eye view: there is a sense of power, detachment, serenity. The romantics—Blake, Wordsworth, Byron, Goethe, Schiller—were the first to raise the question of whether there are ‘higher ceilings of human nature’. But, lacking the concepts for analysing the problem, they left it unsolved. And the romantics in general accepted that the ‘godlike moments’ cannot be sustained, and certainly cannot be re-created at will. This produced the climate of despair that has continued down to our own time. (The major writers of the 20th century—Proust, Eliot, Joyce, Musil—are direct descendants of the romantics, as Edmund Wilson pointed out in Axel’s Castle.) Thus it can be seen that Maslow’s importance extends far beyond the field of psychology. William James had asserted that ‘mystical’ experiences are not mystical at all, but are a perfectly normal potential of human consciousness; but there is no mention of such experiences in Principles of Psychology (or only in passing).

Psychologist and mindfulness expert David Richo, Ph.D., has focused on how these healthy connections are formed and what is needed to keep them alive. He describes the “5 A’s” as the qualities and gifts we all naturally seek out from the important people in our lives, including family, friends, and especially partners. What are these 5 A’s? • Attention—genuine interest in you, what you like and dislike, what inspires and motivates you without being overbearing or intrusive. You experience being heard and noticed. • Acceptance—genuinely embracing your interests, desires, activities, and preferences as they are without trying to alter or change them in any way. • Affection—physical comforting as well as compassion. • Appreciation—encouragement and gratitude for who you are, as you are. • Allowing—it is safe to be yourself and express all that you feel, even if it is not entirely polite or socially acceptable. What Richo is describing, in essence, are those genuine needs we have that form the basis of secure, healthy relationships. The 5 A’s are what we all should have received most of the time from our caregivers when we were growing up. They are also what we want in our adult relationships today. In his book How to Be an Adult in Relationships, Richo compares and contrasts the 5 A’s with what happens in unhealthy or unequal relationships.

You cannot be aware of yourself, for you are awareness itself. How can a witness witness itself? That is like trying to see your own eyes without a reflection, or cut a knife with the tip of its own blade—it is impossible. The subject can only observe the object; it cannot make an object out of itself. But by the very act of observing, you indirectly know yourself as the observer, as the subject. No witnessing of the witness is needed to prove its existence.

This idea should not be taken to an extreme; being in community can be very healing and human beings are naturally interdependent. What you should be alert to is the constant avoidance of solitude. There is also nothing wrong with having a friend help you take your mind off something that is too heavy to process at the moment, but a clear sign of being disconnected from yourself is when too many of your relationships are driven by your need to dodge your tension.

I believe that there are four things that the soul requires in a home. First, it needs a sense of belonging, to feel truly connected to the land, to your roots, to your spirit. Second, a soul needs to feel safe, so that you can be yourself, be creative, and bring forth what you are without fear. Third, it yearns for harmony with the greater cycles of nature. And, finally, your soul needs sacred space. When you have these four things, your home will be filled with inner peace.

It may feel awkward at first, and there may be any number of obstacles. In addition to the obstructions that arise as we inch into this inner mothering, we may be stopped before we start by a discounting voice (a critical parent or protector most likely) saying, “This is ridiculous.” Its tactic is to deny the need. “You’re making a mountain out of a molehill.” “It wasn’t that bad. Just buck up.” Here is where being aware of parts comes as an advantage. Only if we can recognize that this is a part speaking up—a part that has an agenda—will we have a choice to bracket these thoughts and move forward with our intention. One of the next barriers we may face is a feeling of inadequacy. If you were not well mothered, you can easily feel that you haven’t a clue how to do it. You’re uncomfortable, you don’t know what to say or do, and you feel phony trying what doesn’t come naturally. This is enough to stop you right here. If you succeed in making an authentic connection with the undermothered parts within yourself, you may be struck by a sense of guilt that you have inadvertently continued the abandonment by not showing up earlier. No one likes to feel the sharp pain of causing harm to another. And just as I’ve mentioned earlier that a mother may unconsciously keep a distance from a child so as not to arouse her own hurt, you may feel that opening up the locked-away pain in your heart is too high a price to pay for reconnecting with child parts inside you.

Getting Your Needs Met and Tolerating Distress Time for an experiment! I want you to say the following sentence aloud, preferably in front of a mirror, and then observe how your body responds: “I am allowed to have things for myself even if they inconvenience others.” Now pause. Does your body want to accept or reject what you just said? What’s your natural reaction to that statement? Do any memories or images come to mind? The only goal here is to learn about yourself. One reaction isn’t better than another; all data is good data.

Success is not the result of any single quality; it’s about alignment between who you are and where you choose to be. The right skill in the right role. A good person surrounded by other good people. A story that connects you with the world in a way that keeps you going. A network that helps you, and a job that leverages your natural introversion or extroversion. A level of confidence that keeps you going while learning and forgiving yourself for the inevitable failures. A balance between the big four that creates a well-rounded life with no regrets.

ESTABLISHING A DAILY MEDITATION First select a suitable space for your regular meditation. It can be wherever you can sit easily with minimal disturbance: a corner of your bedroom or any other quiet spot in your home. Place a meditation cushion or chair there for your use. Arrange what is around so that you are reminded of your meditative purpose, so that it feels like a sacred and peaceful space. You may wish to make a simple altar with a flower or sacred image, or place your favorite spiritual books there for a few moments of inspiring reading. Let yourself enjoy creating this space for yourself. Then select a regular time for practice that suits your schedule and temperament. If you are a morning person, experiment with a sitting before breakfast. If evening fits your temperament or schedule better, try that first. Begin with sitting ten or twenty minutes at a time. Later you can sit longer or more frequently. Daily meditation can become like bathing or toothbrushing. It can bring a regular cleansing and calming to your heart and mind. Find a posture on the chair or cushion in which you can easily sit erect without being rigid. Let your body be firmly planted on the earth, your hands resting easily, your heart soft, your eyes closed gently. At first feel your body and consciously soften any obvious tension. Let go of any habitual thoughts or plans. Bring your attention to feel the sensations of your breathing. Take a few deep breaths to sense where you can feel the breath most easily, as coolness or tingling in the nostrils or throat, as movement of the chest, or rise and fall of the belly. Then let your breath be natural. Feel the sensations of your natural breathing very carefully, relaxing into each breath as you feel it, noticing how the soft sensations of breathing come and go with the changing breath. After a few breaths your mind will probably wander. When you notice this, no matter how long or short a time you have been away, simply come back to the next breath. Before you return, you can mindfully acknowledge where you have gone with a soft word in the back of your mind, such as “thinking,” “wandering,” “hearing,” “itching.” After softly and silently naming to yourself where your attention has been, gently and directly return to feel the next breath. Later on in your meditation you will be able to work with the places your mind wanders to, but for initial training, one word of acknowledgment and a simple return to the breath is best. As you sit, let the breath change rhythms naturally, allowing it to be short, long, fast, slow, rough, or easy. Calm yourself by relaxing into the breath. When your breath becomes soft, let your attention become gentle and careful, as soft as the breath itself. Like training a puppy, gently bring yourself back a thousand times. Over weeks and months of this practice you will gradually learn to calm and center yourself using the breath. There will be many cycles in this process, stormy days alternating with clear days. Just stay with it. As you do, listening deeply, you will find the breath helping to connect and quiet your whole body and mind. Working with the breath is an excellent foundation for the other meditations presented in this book. After developing some calm and skills, and connecting with your breath, you can then extend your range of meditation to include healing and awareness of all the levels of your body and mind. You will discover how awareness of your breath can serve as a steady basis for all you do.

My God, the world needs criticizing to death. Therefore let’s live the mental life, and glory in our spite, and strip the rotten old show. But, mind you, it’s like this; while you live your life, you are in some way an organic whole with all life. But once you start the mental life you pluck the apple. You’ve severed the connection between the apple and the tree: the organic connection. And if you’ve got nothing in your life but the mental life, then you yourself are a plucked apple… you’ve fallen off the tree. And then it is a logical necessity to be spiteful, just as it’s a natural necessity for a plucked apple to go bad.

Those are the moments I’m proud of. The times I saw through them. The times I made them work to break me, even though I knew they would. The times I questioned the lies being fed to me, though everyone around me believed. I learned early that if everyone around you has their head bowed, their eyes shut tight—keep your eyes open and look around. I’m reflexively suspicious of anyone who stands on a soapbox. Tell me you have the answers and I’ll know you’re trying to sell me something. I’m as wary of certainty as I am of good vibes and positive thinking. They’re delusions that allow you to ignore reality and lay the blame at the feet of those suffering. They just didn’t follow the rules, or think positively enough. They brought it on themselves. I don’t have the answers. Maybe depression’s the natural reaction to a world full of cruelty and pain. But the thing I know about depression is if you want to survive it, you have to train yourself to hold on; when you can see no reason to keep going, you cannot imagine a future worth seeing, you keep moving anyway. That’s not delusion. That’s hope. It’s a muscle you exercise so it’s strong when you need it. You feed it with books and art and dogs who rest their head on your leg, and human connection with people who are genuinely interested and excited; you feed it with growing a tomato and baking sourdough and making a baby laugh and standing at the edge of oceans and feeling a horse’s whiskers on your palm and bear hugs and late-night talks over whiskey and a warm happy sigh on your neck and the unexpected perfect song on the radio, and mushroom trips with a friend who giggles at the way the trees aren’t acting right, and jumping in creeks, and lying in the grass under the stars, and driving with the windows down on a swirly two-lane road. You stock up like a fucking prepper buying tubs of chipped beef and powdered milk and ammo. You stock up so some part of you knows and remembers, even in the dark, all that’s worth saving in this world. It’s comforting to know what happens next. But if there’s one thing I know, it’s that no one fucking knows. And it’s terrifying. I don’t dream of a home and a family, a career and financial stability. I dream of living. And my inner voice, defective though it may be, still tells me happiness and peace, belonging and love, all lie just around the next corner, the next city, the next country. Just keep moving and hope the next place will be better. It has to be. Just around the next bend, everything is beautiful. And it breaks my heart.

This immoral system, how do you get outside it? Option one, you drop out, sever the connections. They got that far in ’68, okay? People went as far with that as they could, to say, I’m free, you’re free, kumbaya and barbaric yawp and yadda yadda, and look what happened. The problem with the whole Rousseau trip is that man is primordially a social animal, in the sense of clan or tribe. Marx says this somewhere. You detach completely, you not only find yourself way out on a limb, against your nature, but you’ve lost any power for group resistance. And eventually, you come crawling back, clutching credit-card applications, begging to be let in.

Joscha: For me a very interesting discovery in the last year was the word spirit—because I realized that what “spirit” actually means: It’s an operating system for an autonomous robot. And when the word was invented, people needed this word, but they didn’t have robots that built themselves yet; the only autonomous robots that were known were people, animals, plants, ecosystems, cities and so on. And they all had spirits. And it makes sense to say that a plant is an operating system, right? If you pinch the plant in one area, then it’s going to have repercussions throughout the plant. Everything in the plant is in some sense connected into some global aesthetics, like in other organisms. An organism is not a collection of cells; it’s a function that tells cells how to behave. And this function is not implemented as some kind of supernatural thing, like some morphogenetic field, it is an emergent result of the interactions of each cell with each other cell. Lex: Oh my god, so what you’re saying is the organism is a function that tells the cells what to do? And the function emerges from the interaction of the cells. Joscha: Yes. So it’s basically a description of what the plant is doing in terms of macro-states. And the macro-states, the physical implementation are too many of them to describe them, so the software that we use to describe what a plant is doing—this spirit of the plant—is the software, the operating system of the plant, right? This is a way in which we, the observers, make sense of the plant. The same is true for people, so people have spirits, which is their operating system in a way, right, and there’s aspects of that operating system that relate to how your body functions, and others how you socially interact, how you interact with yourself and so on. And we make models of that spirit and we think it’s a loaded term because it’s from a pre-scientific age, but it took the scientific age a long time to rediscover a term that is pretty much the same thing and I suspect that the differences that we still see between the old word and the new word are translation errors that over the centuries.

We wanted tranquil minds. We wanted to escape our addiction to the adrenaline rush of connectivity. When Horace advises Lollius Maximus he also advises himself—indeed, the poem may do the latter more than the former. “Interrogate the writings of the wise,” he counsels. Asking them to tell you how you can Get through your life in a peaceable tranquil way. Will it be greed, that always feels poverty-stricken, That harasses and torments you all your days? Will it be hope and fear about trivial things, In anxious alternation in your mind? Where is it virtue comes from, is it from books? Or is it a gift from Nature that can’t be learned? What is the way to become a friend to yourself? What brings tranquility? What makes you care less? (I am using David Ferry’s marvelous translation.) Horace

ENJOYING SITTING Allow yourself to sit quietly, with mindfulness and concentration. Allow your breath to follow its natural rhythm. Enjoy your in-breath and out-breath. Don’t strive; relaxation will come. When you are completely relaxed, healing takes place on its own. As we sit, we may become aware that outside, up in the sky, there are so many stars. We may not be able to see them, but they are there nevertheless. We are sitting on an amazingly beautiful planet, which is revolving in our galaxy, the Milky Way, a river with trillions of stars. If we can have this awareness when we sit, what else do we need to sit for? We clearly see the wonders of the universe and our planet Earth. Sitting with this kind of awareness, we can embrace the whole world, from the past to the future, and our happiness is boundless.

In tantric practice one identifies with a yidam of a particular buddha family corresponding to one’s nature. For instance, if a yidam is associated with the ratna family, then he will be yellow in color and have symbolism characteristic of ratna. The types of mandalas given to you by your teacher depend upon the family to which you belong, whether you belong to the passionate family or the family of pride, or whether you have the quality of air or water in you. Generally one can feel that certain people have the quality of earth and solidness, and certain people have the quality of air, rushing here and there, and other people have the quality of warmth and a presence connected with fire. The mandalas are given to you so that you can identify yourself with your particular emotions which have the potential of transmuting into wisdom.

WHAT IS CALMNESS? Calmness is not a character trait, it’s simply a skill. You have to decide that it matters, that the quality of your presence would be better if you slowed yourself down and were really connected to people and the moment you are living in. Then you practise until gradually it becomes part of you. It benefits everyone around you – they feel peaceful and happy in your presence. It’s exactly what children need in a parent. And it benefits you – with less stress hormones, you live longer and feel better. Calmness is well worth cultivating. Calmness is made up of certain actions; breathing deeper, dropping your shoulders, settling your muscles, feeling your feet strongly planted on the ground, focusing your thoughts on the job in hand in a steady easy way, and not going off into panicked thoughts. Even just counting three or four breaths, in and out, will slow your heartbeat and calm your mind down. Calm people are actually doing these things automatically; when an emergency strikes they intentionally calm themselves more in order to counter the tendency to panic and do the wrong thing. Self-regulating your level of emotional arousal is an incredibly valuable skill for life. All you have to do is notice, am I calm? If not, breathe a couple of times consciously, feel your feet on the ground, and notice how, as the last burst of adrenaline clears away, the calmness response starts to kick in. Practise this for a few days, and soon the natural appeal of calmness will pull you more and more to that peaceful and steady place. Everything is better – the taste of food, the scent of flowers, the feel of the water in your shower, warm on your skin. You will find that time slows down, and you can think more in the pause before you open your mouth. And that has real benefits!

EAGLE The East direction is represented by eagle and condor, who bring vision, clarity, and foresight. Eagle perceives the entire panorama of life without becoming bogged down in its details. The energies of eagle assist us in finding the guiding vision of our lives. The eyes of condor see into the past and the future, helping to know where we come from, and who we are becoming. When I work with a client who is stuck in the traumas of the past, I help her to connect with the spirit of eagle or condor. As this energy infuses the healing space, my client is often able to attain new clarity and insight into her life. This is not an intellectual insight, but rather a call, faint at first, hardly consciously heard. Her possibilities beckon to her and propel her out of her grief and into her destiny. I believe that while everyone has a future, only certain people have a destiny. Having a destiny means living to your fullest human potential. You don’t need to become a famous politician or poet, but your destiny has to be endowed with meaning and purpose. You could be a street sweeper and be living a destiny. You could be the president of a large corporation and be living a life bereft of meaning. One can make oneself available to destiny, but it requires a great deal of courage to do so. Otherwise our destiny bypasses us, leaving us deprived of a fulfillment known by those who choose to take the road less traveled. Eagle allows us to rise above the mundane battles that occupy our lives and consume our energy and attention. Eagle gives us wings to soar above trivial day-to-day struggles into the high peaks close to Heaven. Eagle and condor represent the self-transcending principle in nature. Biologists have identified the self-transcending principle as one of the prime agendas of evolution. Living molecules seek to transcend their selfhood to become cells, then simple organisms, which then form tissues, then organs, and then evolve into complex beings such as humans and whales. Every transcending jump is inclusive of all of the levels beneath it. Cells are inclusive of molecules, yet transcend them; organs are inclusive of cells, yet go far beyond them; whales are inclusive of organs yet cannot be described by them, as the whole transcends the sum of its parts. The transcending principle represented by eagle states that problems at a certain level are best solved by going up one step. The problems of cells are best resolved by organs, while the needs of organs are best addressed by an organism such as a butterfly or a human. The same principle operates in our lives. Think of nested Russian dolls. Material needs are the tiny doll in the center. The larger emotional doll encompasses them, and both are contained within the outermost spiritual doll. In this way, we cannot satisfy emotional needs with material things, but we can satisfy them spiritually. When we go one step up, our emotional needs are addressed in the solution. We rise above our life dilemmas on the wings of eagle and see our lives in perspective.

I bought a narrow blue one with white spots and square ends, took off my long-striped tie and rolled it up in my top jacket pocket, leaving a bit sticking out. After a few attempts at the speckled mirror, I manage to get the bow tie almost right, if a little lopsided. In the world of bow ties, it is important that it should be ever so slightly imperfect; this is to show that: a) you tied it yourself; and b) that you are slightly 'devil may care' and not at all prissy. Perfection is the sign of an amateur, perhaps someone who works with great skill but without connection to his animal nature, to passion and lust. Perfection is not for living things, certainly not for human beings; if you are not capable of loving flaws and faults, then you are not capable of love. I have lived most of my life in poverty, but I can tie a bow tie and to some this will be a mystery, but somebody who knows me would say, 'Of course he can tie a bow tie.' Such imperfections - wrinkles in the world - are where all of life's best stories are.

How to live (forty pieces of advice I feel to be helpful but which I don’t always follow) 1. Appreciate happiness when it is there 2. Sip, don’t gulp. 3. Be gentle with yourself. Work less. Sleep more. 4. There is absolutely nothing in the past that you can change. That’s basic physics. 5. Beware of Tuesdays. And Octobers. 6. Kurt Vonnegut was right. “Reading and writing are the most nourishing forms of meditation anyone has so far found.” 7. Listen more than you talk. 8. Don’t feel guilty about being idle. More harm is probably done to the world through work than idleness. But perfect your idleness. Make it mindful. 9. Be aware that you are breathing. 10. Wherever you are, at any moment, try to find something beautiful. A face, a line out of a poem, the clouds out of a window, some graffiti, a wind farm. Beauty cleans the mind. 11. Hate is a pointless emotion to have inside you. It is like eating a scorpion to punish it for stinging you. 12. Go for a run. Then do some yoga. 13. Shower before noon. 14. Look at the sky. Remind yourself of the cosmos. Seek vastness at every opportunity, in order to see the smallness of yourself. 15. Be kind. 16. Understand that thoughts are thoughts. If they are unreasonable, reason with them, even if you have no reason left. You are the observer of your mind, not its victim. 17. Do not watch TV aimlessly. Do not go on social media aimlessly. Always be aware of what you are doing and why you are doing it. Don’t value TV less. Value it more. Then you will watch it less. Unchecked distractions will lead you to distraction. 18. Sit down. Lie down. Be still. Do nothing. Observe. Listen to your mind. Let it do what it does without judging it. Let it go, like Snow Queen in Frozen. 19. Don’t’ worry about things that probably won’t happen. 20. Look at trees. Be near trees. Plant trees. (Trees are great.) 21. Listen to that yoga instructor on YouTube, and “walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet”. 22. Live. Love. Let go. The three Ls. 23. Alcohol maths. Wine multiplies itself by itself. The more you have, the more you are likely to have. And if it is hard to stop at one glass, it will be impossible at three. Addition is multiplication. 24. Beware of the gap. The gap between where you are and where you want to be. Simply thinking of the gap widens it. And you end up falling through. 25. Read a book without thinking about finishing it. Just read it. Enjoy every word, sentence, and paragraph. Don’t wish for it to end, or for it to never end. 26. No drug in the universe will make you feel better, at the deepest level, than being kind to other people. 27. Listen to what Hamlet – literature’s most famous depressive – told Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” 28. If someone loves you, let them. Believe in that love. Live for them, even when you feel there is no point. 29. You don’t need the world to understand you. It’s fine. Some people will never really understand things they haven’t experienced. Some will. Be grateful. 30. Jules Verne wrote of the “Living Infinite”. This is the world of love and emotion that is like a “sea”. If we can submerge ourselves in it, we find infinity in ourselves, and the space we need to survive. 31. Three in the morning is never the time to try and sort out your life. 32. Remember that there is nothing weird about you. You are just a human, and everything you do and feel is a natural thing, because we are natural animals. You are nature. You are a hominid ape. You are in the world and the world is in you. Everything connects. 33. Don’t believe in good or bad, or winning and losing, or victory and defeat, or ups and down. At your lowest and your highest, whether you are happy or despairing or calm or angry, there is a kernel of you that stays the same. That is the you that matters.

The Cistercian monks built simple and harmonious buildings out of the local limestone, with plain colours and few ornaments. The plans involved regular repetitions: the doors, windows and roof vaults wouldn’t vary much, so that the eye would easily find points of reference. Everything felt solid and enduring. Our natural human frailty was to contrast with the immemorial tone of the masonry. The monks were particularly keen on cloisters: covered walkways opening onto a quiet central square around which one could take de-stressing walks even on a rainy afternoon. The abbey at Cîteaux was just one of thousands built with similar intentions over a period of hundreds of years. It’s not an accident that architecture that sets out to create a contemplative and serene atmosphere can easily get labelled ‘monastic’, though in truth there’s nothing inherently religious or Christian about the pursuit of calm. The longing for serenity is a continuing, widespread human need, although the overtly religious background to abbeys and monasteries has an unfortunate association: making calm places erroneously seem as if they were inherently connected to a belief in Jesus. We need to rediscover the search for calm as a fundamental ambition of all architecture, not least for the buildings of our own harried times.

LEADING LESSONS Criticism can be useful. I’ve taken a beating from the DWTS judges on many occasions. Most of the time, because I’m always aware of the cameras in my face, I just suck it up and take it. Here’s the thing: I realize that maybe they’re seeing something I’m not. Sometimes you’re too close to a situation, too connected to it, to be 100 percent honest with yourself. Or your ego gets in the way and won’t let you improve, because that would mean changing course and admitting you were wrong. I tell my partners to listen carefully when Len, Carrie Ann, or Bruno has a constructive criticism for us. Yes, sometimes it boils down to taste and opinion (and I don’t always agree), but often it’s a valid point. They want us to succeed. The way I see it, you have lots of choices on how to handle it: the first is to lose your temper, get defensive, and spend the rest of the night beating yourself up about it. The second--a natural reaction for most people--is to mentally shut down when someone points out your flaws. Who wants to hear that? Let me just drown it out and ignore it. The third option is your best: keep your mind and your ears open. You can learn about your weaknesses and how you can improve them. A leader is never scared of criticism, but instead knows there is always room to grow and improve. So bring it on.

When we reflect on our daily lives, we might look back at a day that was very stressful and think, “Well, that wasn’t my favorite day this week.” When you’re in the middle of one of those days, you might long for a day with less stress in it. But if you put a wider lens on your life and subtract every day that you have experienced as stressful, you won’t find yourself with an ideal life. Instead, you’ll find yourself also subtracting the experiences that have helped you grow, the challenges you are most proud of, and the relationships that define you. You may have spared yourself some discomfort, but you will also have robbed yourself of some meaning. And yet, it’s not at all uncommon to wish for a life without stress. While this is a natural desire, pursuing it comes at a heavy cost. In fact, many of the negative outcomes we associate with stress may actually be the consequence of trying to avoid it. Psychologists have found that trying to avoid stress leads to a significantly reduced sense of well-being, life satisfaction, and happiness. Avoiding stress can also be isolating. In a study of students at Doshisha University in Japan, the goal to avoid stress predicted a drop, over time, in their sense of connection and belonging. Having such a goal can even exhaust you. For example, researchers at the University of Zurich asked students about their goals, then tracked them for one month. Across two typically stressful periods—end-of-semester exams and the winter holidays—those with the strongest desire to avoid stress were the most likely to report declines in concentration, physical energy, and self-control. One particularly impressive study conducted through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, in Palo Alto, California, followed more than one thousand adults for ten years. At the beginning of the study, researchers asked the participants about how they dealt with stress. Those who reported trying to avoid stress were more likely to become depressed over the following decade. They also experienced increasing conflict at work and at home, and more negative outcomes, such as being fired or getting divorced. Importantly, avoiding stress predicted the increase in depression, conflict, and negative events above and beyond any symptoms or difficulties reported at the beginning of the study. Wherever a participant started in life, the tendency to avoid stress made things worse over the next decade. Psychologists call this vicious cycle stress generation. It’s the ironic consequence of trying to avoid stress: You end up creating more sources of stress while depleting the resources that should be supporting you. As the stress piles up, you become increasingly overwhelmed and isolated, and therefore even more likely to rely on avoidant coping strategies, like trying to steer clear of stressful situations or to escape your feelings with self-destructive distractions. The more firmly committed you are to avoiding stress, the more likely you are to find yourself in this downward spiral. As psychologists Richard Ryan, Veronika Huta, and Edward Deci write in The Exploration of Happiness, “The more directly one aims to maximize pleasure and avoid pain, the more likely one is to produce instead a life bereft of depth, meaning, and community.

You certainly don’t “need” to evangelize. You can rest assured that God is perfectly capable of bringing people to himself in His own good time and in His own good way. That said, though, it’s very likely you will be galvanized by your own joy in the Lord to share that joy with others. It’s only natural to want to share something wonderful you’ve found with everyone around you – and especially with those in your life for whom you have affection or care about. And if that life-enhancing, life-saving something you’ve found is absolutely free to anyone who will but ask for it, well.. Well then it’s a wonder, isn’t it, that every bible sold doesn’t come with a bullhorn. The question of exactly when and how it’s best for you to personally share your faith with others is one that the Holy Spirit stands ever ready to help you answer. Primarily, it’s a matter of simply paying attention to the signals you get from non-christians about the degree to which they’re ready to have a conversation in which it would be natural to talk about the value and nature of personal beliefs. Forcing that conversation is unlikely to prove productive to you or to the other person. You don’t want to alienate someone by too zealously pushing Christ on them before they’re optn to that sort of interaction with you. The best rule of thumb when wondering how and when you should go about evangelizing is to just be yourself and relax about it. When it’s time to talk to someone about Jesus, Jesus by His spirit will let you know. Trust in this. God’s ultimate purpose is to bring every person on earth to the realization that his son died so they might have eternal life. And as a Christian you do have a role in that inspiring mission. Trust God to let you know when it’s time for you to step into it – how and with whom.

Forgive me I hope you are feeling better. I am, thank you. Will you not sit down? In vain I have struggled. It will not do! My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you. In declaring myself thus I'm fully aware that I will be going expressly against the wishes of my family, my friends, and, I hardly need add, my own better judgement. The relative situation of our families is such that any alliance between us must be regarded as a highly reprehensible connection. Indeed as a rational man I cannot but regard it as such myself, but it cannot be helped. Almost from the earliest moments of our acquaintance I have come to feel for you a passionate admiration and regard, which despite of my struggles, has overcome every rational objection. And I beg you, most fervently, to relieve my suffering and consent to be my wife. In such cases as these, I believe the established mode is to express a sense of obligation. But I cannot. I have never desired your good opinion, and you have certainly bestowed it most unwillingly. I'm sorry to cause pain to anyone, but it was most unconsciously done, and, I hope, will be of short duration. And this is all the reply I am to expect? I might wonder why, with so little effort at civility, I am rejected. And I might wonder why, with so evident a desire to offend and insult me you chose to tell me that you like me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character! Was this not some excuse for incivility if I was uncivil? I have every reason in the world to think ill of you. Do you think any consideration would tempt me to accept the man who has been the means of ruining the happiness of a most beloved sister? Can you deny that you have done it? I have no wish to deny it. I did everything in my power to separate my friend from your sister, and I rejoice in my success. Towards him I have been kinder than towards myself. But it's not merely that on which my dislike of you is founded. Long before it had taken place, my dislike of you was decided when I heard Mr Wickham's story of your dealings with him. How can you defend yourself on that subject? You take an eager interest in that gentleman's concerns! And of your infliction! You have reduced him to his present state of poverty, and yet you can treat his misfortunes with contempt and ridicule! And this is your opinion of me? My faults by this calculation are heavy indeed, but perhaps these offences might have been overlooked, had not your pride been hurt by the honest confession of the scruples that had long prevented my forming any serious design on you, had I concealed my struggles and flattered you. But disguise of every sort is my abhorrence. Nor am I ashamed of the feelings I related. They were natural and just could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections? To congratulate myself on the hope of relations whose condition in life is so decidedly below my own? You are mistaken, Mr Darcy. The mode of your declaration merely spared me any concern I might have felt in refusing you had you behaved in a more gentleman-like manner. You could not have made me the offer of your hand in any possible way that would have tempted me to accept it. From the very beginning, your manners impressed me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain for the feelings of others. I had known you a month before I felt you were the last man in the world whom I could ever marry! You have said quite enough, madam. I perfectly comprehend your feelings and now have only to be ashamed of what my own have been. Please forgive me for having taken up your time and accept my best wishes for your health and happiness. Forgive me. I hope you are feeling better. I am, thank you. Will you no

Naval’s Laws The below is Naval’s response to the question “Are there any quotes you live by or think of often?” These are gold. Take the time necessary to digest them. “These aren’t all quotes from others. Many are maxims that I’ve carved for myself.” Be present above all else. Desire is suffering (Buddha). Anger is a hot coal that you hold in your hand while waiting to throw it at someone else (Buddhist saying). If you can’t see yourself working with someone for life, don’t work with them for a day. Reading (learning) is the ultimate meta-skill and can be traded for anything else. All the real benefits in life come from compound interest. Earn with your mind, not your time. 99% of all effort is wasted. Total honesty at all times. It’s almost always possible to be honest and positive. Praise specifically, criticize generally (Warren Buffett). Truth is that which has predictive power. Watch every thought. (Always ask, “Why am I having this thought?”) All greatness comes from suffering. Love is given, not received. Enlightenment is the space between your thoughts (Eckhart Tolle). Mathematics is the language of nature. Every moment has to be complete in and of itself. A Few of Naval’s Tweets that are Too Good to Leave Out “What you choose to work on, and who you choose to work with, are far more important than how hard you work.” “Free education is abundant, all over the Internet. It’s the desire to learn that’s scarce.” “If you eat, invest, and think according to what the ‘news’ advocates, you’ll end up nutritionally, financially, and morally bankrupt.” “We waste our time with short-term thinking and busywork. Warren Buffett spends a year deciding and a day acting. That act lasts decades.” “The guns aren’t new. The violence isn’t new. The connected cameras are new, and that changes everything.” “You get paid for being right first, and to be first, you can’t wait for consensus.” “My one repeated learning in life: ‘There are no adults.’ Everyone’s making it up as they go along. Figure it out yourself, and do it.” “A busy mind accelerates the passage of subjective time.

Earth (481-640) People with this personality type are likely to become successful leaders. You tend to be more disciplined and careful at planning tasks. Loyalty and trust are important equations in your relationships hence they prove to be your strength in hard times. You respect others and keep people united which makes people flourish under your leadership. Earth signs are efficient decision makers hence always remain firm on the step they took. Fire: (400-300) Fire people are smart enthusiastic and energetic to be around. You are very competitive and curious, and more often very passionate about your goals and desires. Trusting people with a job or any important personal task is hard hence making emotional connections are difficult for you. making friends or getting a lover, your life is full of drama and there’s always a lot happening around you. You are intelligent and always find new ways to do things Water (160-320) Water people are kind and empathetic but sensitive. And you sometimes tend to become people pleasers. being quite impulsive and always in a hurry, you make decisions haphazardly. Water people are shy and introverted while partying around with friends on a weekend would be the last thing you want to do. You dread small talk and expressing yourself to a group of people is quite a demanding job. People feel relaxed in your presence you bring out the best in them. Decision-making can be demanding and you are sometimes regretful of overthinking and hence not capable of finding a firm decision. Air: (0-160) You have quite an entrancing personality. People are naturally drawn towards you and find your company comforting and friendly. Air signs are naturally smart and quite efficient in their workplace. While using your challenges and opportunities wisely you are likely to have great careers. you are good at advising your colleagues. But being bound in a relationship sometimes doesn’t seem to help you, rather you respect open free yet intimate emotional connections. Air people who are artistic and creative always look at things from a unique lens. So now you know your element.

So you’re saying,” I interjected, “that there is no organized, conspiratorial evil in the world, no satanic plot to which we fall prey?” “None. There is only human fear and the bizarre ways that humans try to ward it off.” “What about the many references in sacred texts and scriptures to Satan?” “This idea is a metaphor, a symbolic way of warning people to look to the divine for security, not to their sometimes tragic ego urges and habits. Blaming an outside force for everything bad was perhaps important at a certain stage in human development. But now it obscures the truth, because blaming our behavior on forces outside ourselves is a way of avoiding responsibility. And we tend to use the idea of Satan to project that some people are inherently evil so we can dehumanize the ones we disagree with and write them off. It is time now to understand the true nature of human evil in a more sophisticated way and then to deal with it.” “If there is no satanic plot,” I said, “then ‘possession’ doesn’t exist.” “That’s not so,” Wil said emphatically. “Psychological ‘possession’ does exist. But it is not the result of a conspiracy of evil; it is just energy dynamics. Fearful people want to control others. That’s why certain groups try to pull you in and convince you to follow them, and ask you to submit to their authority, or fight you if you try to leave.” “When I was first drawn into that illusory town, I thought I had been possessed by some demonic force.” “No, you were drawn in because you made the same mistake you made earlier: you didn’t just open up and listen to those souls; you gave yourself over to them, as if they automatically had all the answers, without checking to see if they were connected and motivated by love. And unlike the souls who are divinely connected, they didn’t back away from you. They just pulled you into their world, the same way some crazy group or cult might do in the physical dimension if you don’t discriminate.” Wil paused as if in thought, then continued. “All this is more of the Tenth Insight; that’s why we’re seeing it. As communication between the two dimensions increases, we’ll begin to have more encounters with souls in the Afterlife. This part of the Insight is that we must discern between those souls who are awake and connected with the spirit of love and those who are fearful and stuck in an obsessive trance of some kind. But we must do so without invalidating and dehumanizing those caught in such fear dramas by thinking they are demons or devils. They are souls in a growth process, just like us.

Archangel Raphael This is the realm of healing Love. As natural healers from the heart, you who carry this realm innately project blue healing rays through your hands. As a Raphaelite, the way your Soul emanates its gifts is through this healing energy. You don’t need to do anything outwardly for healing Love to be radiated to others. Raphaelites have a tendency to overexert this healing influence unnecessarily. It works on the level of being, not doing. In essence, healing naturally occurs wherever the frequency of Love is present. You Raphaelites can overextend yourselves based on your feeling that everything needs healing, feeling that it’s your job to bring that healing Love wherever it is lacking. That is an endless, exhausting, fruitless task. Love is the same energy as life force. You are here to help us to return to the natural state of wholeness through the power of healing Love. You are always present with understanding and care. You are loving individuals who have a tendency to deplete yourselves by attempting to fill the seemingly endless needs of others. Your challenge is to discern who is part of your Soul plan to extend your energy toward and how to do it in a way that does not leave you depleted. You are here to show people that Love is an infinite commodity universally available. It is not yours to personally give to others. When a Raphaelite feels the need to personally give the divine Love they inherently feel connected to, to another, as though it belongs solely to them, it can become a caretaking exchange, which is disempowering to both people. This caretaking level of love is different than the frequency of divine Love. Healing as Love is not meant to be at the level of caretaking. It is not for you to say, “I’ll give all I have to you, because it feels so natural to do so, and it doesn’t matter if I get anything in return.” This state can lead to the expectation for others that you are here to fill their needs for Love. The Raphaelite is here to remind us that divine Love is the healing force moving through everyone. You must visualize or feel an umbilical cord from your heart to the source of divine Love. This is how Love, in fact, feeds us all. The channel from our Creator to our heart is filled with divine Love. When we feel thanksgiving for the eternal presence of Love, it ignites the miracle of healing that hasn’t held a place for Love. We can co-create as Love with those around us freely and appropriately from this place and this place alone. Remember, healer, to heal yourself first in this way and you will have much to give and will be rewarded joyously in return for that gift. The Raphael realm can be tapped into any time by anyone requesting the healing balm of Love that is vital to our life nourishment. We are designed to know this healing Love as a natural flow of our heart’s expression.

EXERCISE 10: DEVELOPING A GRAND VISION You may want to do this exercise alone, out in a natural setting somewhere. 1. See Your Interests, Values, and Abilities. The next step is to discover how your interests and your deep values connect into and form your mission. It can be accomplished by seeing a grand, whole, meaningful image of what purpose you could dedicate your life to. This will be formed from your interests, values, and present goals. Begin to play with the images that you see, which represent some kind of direction that you want to take. As you get a sense of what your mission can be, see various snapshots of yourself doing what you love to do, snapshots of your abilities. 2. Focus on Heroes and Heroines. Take a look at what your favorite heroes or heroines do. See yourself doing things that give you the same feeling you get when you think of them. See snapshots of the person you want to become. Any images you don’t like can fade away. 3. Direct a Movie of Yourself. See yourself the way you want to be—doing the things you love to do. Whatever you choose to put on the screen, you’re the Spielberg, you’re the director. See the images that you feel passionate about. You can play with the images in front of you. Pretend that you’re in the middle of an inner, three-dimensional movie theater. It’s a place where you can see and hear and feel with great fidelity. Notice how much you can see, letting the wisdom from within guide the visual display that you see in front of you. Visualize it, feel it, enjoy it. The images are often up close and in full, rich color. See yourself living out a scenario that gives you tingles in your spine. You can zoom in on that glorious, fun-filled, exciting future that you see. It allows you to do what you love to do and accomplish what you believe in. 4. Recall Your Deep Values. List your deep values as you watch your mission scenario. Notice how your values and your images can fit together with a remarkable consistency. 5. Ask for Help from Your Inner Wisdom. Ask for your inner wisdom, the higher powers, or God to guide your grand vision. This vision is going to be more of a discovery than a creation. Let it come to you. Ask and it will come. Take the time to see and hear those aspects of life that unify into a whole that you feel a powerful passion for. See some more images. See some time going by. See various bright, radiant, up-close, colorful images of what it is that you could create in your life. They can begin going in a certain direction, coalescing and representing many of your current goals, some of the things that you want. See them develop into a kind of grand visionary collection of images that represents your purpose and your mission. 6. Do What It Takes. Take whatever time you need—five minutes, an hour, a whole afternoon. This is your life, your future that you are creating. When you finish, write it down. Your images are so attractive, you have some glimpses of what your mission is. Now you can develop it more fully. Ask the visionary in you to give you the gift of this grand vision. Now that you can see your grand vision of what you want to contribute to, you can make that vision into a cause to work for—a specific direction to channel your efforts to.

So you mustn’t be frightened, dear Mr. Kappus, if a sadness rises in front of you, larger than any you have ever seen; if an anxiety, like light and cloud-shadows, moves over your hands and over everything you do. You must realize that something is happening to you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand and will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any misery, any depression, since after all you don’t know what work these conditions are doing inside you? Why do you want to persecute yourself with the question of where all this is coming from and where it is going? Since you know, after all, that you are in the midst of transitions and you wished for nothing so much as to change. If there is anything unhealthy in your reactions, just bear in mind that sickness is the means by which an organism frees itself from what is alien; so one must simply help it to be sick, to have its whole sickness and to break out with it, since that is the way it gets better. In you, dear Mr. Kappus, so much is happening now; you must be patient like someone who is sick, and confident like someone who is recovering; for perhaps you are both. And more: you are also the doctor, who has to watch over himself. But in every sickness there are many days when the doctor can do nothing but wait. And that is what you, insofar as you are your own doctor, must now do, more than anything else. Don’t observe yourself too closely. Don’t be too quick to draw conclusions from what happens to you; simply let it happen. Otherwise it will be too easy for you to look with blame (that is: morally) at your past, which naturally has a share in everything that now meets you. But whatever errors, wishes, and yearnings of your boyhood are operating in you now are not what you remember and condemn. The extraordinary circumstances of a solitary and helpless childhood are so difficult, so complicated, surrendered to so many influences and at the same time so cut off from all real connection with life that, where a vice enters it, one may not simply call it a vice. One must be so careful with names anyway; it is so often the name of an offense that a life shatters upon, not the nameless and personal action itself, which was perhaps a quite definite necessity of that life and could have been absorbed by it without any trouble. And the expenditure of energy seems to you so great only because you overvalue victory; it is not the 'great thing' that you think you have achieved, although you are right about your feeling; the great thing is that there was already something there which you could replace that deception with, something true and real. Without this even your victory would have been just a moral reaction of no great significance; but in fact it has become a part of your life. Your life, dear Mr. Kappus, which I think of with so many good wishes. Do you remember how that life yearned out of childhood toward the 'great thing'? I see that it is now yearning forth beyond the great thing toward the greater one. That is why it does not cease to be difficult, but that is also why it will not cease to grow. And if there is one more thing that I must say to you, it is this: Don’t think that the person who is trying to comfort you now lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes give you much pleasure. His life has much trouble and sadness, and remains far behind yours. If it were otherwise, he would never have been able to find those words.

Question : YOU HAVE DEFINED YOURSELF AS THE RICH MAN'S GURU. DON'T THE OTHER PEOPLE INTEREST YOU? ARE THE RICH PARTICULARLY IN NEED OF A GURU? OR ARE YOU THEIR GURU BECAUSE THEY HAVE MONEY? Osho : The first thing to be understood: I have not defined myself as the rich man's guru. It is the yellow journalism, which dominates the mind of the masses around the world, which came up with the definition. I simply accepted it with my own meanings. They were saying it to be derogatory, but my meaning is totally different. A Vincent van Gogh is far more rich than Henry Ford. Richness does not mean only wealth or money; richness is a multidimensional phenomenon. A poet may be poor, but he has a sensitivity that no money can purchase. He is richer than any rich man. A musician may not be rich, but as far as his music is concerned, no wealth is richer than his music. To me the rich man is one who has sensitivity, creativity, receptivity. The man of wealth is only one of the dimensions. According to me the man of wealth is also a creative artist: he creates wealth. Not everybody can be a Henry Ford. His talents should be respected, although what he creates is mundane. It cannot be compared to Mozart's music or Nijinsky's dance, or Jean-Paul Sartre's philosophy. But still, he creates something which is valuable, utilitarian, and the world would be better if there were many more Henry Fords. So when I accepted the definition, my meaning was richness in any dimension. Only a rich being can have some connection with me. A certain sensitivity is absolutely needed, a certain vision is needed. A poor man is one whose mind is retarded - he may have immense wealth; that does not matter - who cannot understand classical music, who cannot understand poetry, who cannot understand philosophy, who cannot understand the high flights of human spirit. There are certain basic necessities which should be fulfilled; there is a hierarchy. First your bodily needs should be fulfilled; then your psychological needs should be fulfilled. Only then for the first time you become hungry for spiritual experiences. Now what can I do about it? - that is the nature of things. If water evaporates at one hundred degrees heat, what can I do? I cannot persuade it to evaporate at ninety-nine degrees. It is the nature of things. And this is the hierarchy: bodily needs first, then psychological needs second, and only then spiritual needs. What I can give to you concerns your hunger for spiritual growth. If it is not there, I cannot create it. If it is there, I can show you the path. You can see it. I have not been seeking out and going to the rich people. Those who have come to me have come on their own. Their thirst has brought them to me. I have not been giving any promises to anybody. I have not been going after anybody. Millions of people - those who have come to me - have come on their own. And now you can see for yourself. Those who have come have a certain richness of some kind or other; it is not only the money. I have around me people of all talents, people of different kinds of genius. Somehow my very approach prevents those people who will not be benefited from coming close to me. Even if they come accidentally, they disappear; they don't stay. They don't become part of my world. They don't share the vision with me. ..by some existential arrangement I can attract only those people who are very talented, immensely intelligent, very rich in some quality of life. Only from that angle of richness will they have a connection with me. And the yellow journalists go on saying sensational things to people, meaningless, false, ugly - because I am not a guru. If I have to define it I will say, "I am only a friend, a friend of all those who have talents, intelligence and some urge for spiritual growth." To me they are the rich people.

Laura I am not careless about the feelings I have for you. I never expected to find myself wanting to share my life with another person again. As the years passed, I thought it was most unlikely, and now I see myself believing that to love someone is a connection to the deepest levels of the human heart. It isn’t about analyzing why or deciding if it is the right thing to do…, It is beyond that.” In a less serious tone, he asked, “Laura, do you think you could trust your heart? Could you just let soar whatever rises naturally in you, when you are not asking yourself, ‘What if?’ “I’m a patient guy, Laura. You may not be right where I am, but I am willing to wait until you are. I want you to be the love I could never forget, nor would want to forget, and I am eager to accept what comes with this kind of commitment.” Laura felt the uplift Jacob’s words brought her. Her heart fluttered, yet like a bird about to fly, she grasped it in her mind and arrested its flight. Jacob sensed the distance she was putting between them. Glancing down, he saw her hand, slightly splayed, lightly touching his chest It was a clear message, a barrier to him reaching out and gently folding her to him. But he covered his hand over hers and placed it over her heart. “Can you listen to your heart? It likes me.” He pleaded.

When you do, you realize there are six billion people wandering around, six billion chances to form connections, friendships, shared experiences.” He shrugged. “If you shut yourself away from everyone and say ‘I’m lonely’, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, when the rest of the world is waiting outside that door.

release a cord, energy binding, or marker, close your eyes and visualize your spiritual field. Ask the Divine to show you the entry point of the attachment and show you how the attachment affects you. Check to see who or what outside of yourself the cord is attached to and where inside of your body the cord is hooked. Now ask the Divine to substitute a healing stream of grace—or several, if necessary—for this energy attachment. As it is put into place, ask what you need to better understand about the nature of love in order to allow the attachment to fully release. Then bless yourself and all others that were involved, and ask the Divine to continue to provide you protection while healing all of your energetic boundaries.

be prepared to meet a new version of yourself every time you shed another layer of old trauma, conditioning, or hurt. as you let go, your perspectives and interests will shift. transformation is natural as you travel the road to greater self-awareness, happiness, and peace.

The links you strive to drown are causal connections. The enemy you seek to defeat is the law of causality: it permits you no miracles. The law of causality is the law of identity applied to action. All actions are caused by entities. The nature of an action is caused and determined by the nature of the entities that act; a thing cannot act in contradiction to its nature. An action not caused by an entity would be caused by a zero, which would mean a zero controlling a thing, a non-entity controlling an entity, the non-existent ruling the existent—which is the universe of your teachers’ desire, the cause of their doctrines of causeless action, the reason of their revolt against reason, the goal of their morality, their politics, their economics, the ideal they strive for: the reign of the zero. “The law of identity does not permit you to have your cake and eat it, too. The law of causality does not permit you to eat your cake before you have it. But if you drown both laws in the blanks of your mind, if you pretend to yourself and to others that you don’t see—then you can try to proclaim your right to eat your cake today and mine tomorrow, you can preach that the way to have a cake is to eat it first, before you bake it, that the way to produce is to start by consuming, that all wishers have an equal claim to all things, since nothing is caused by anything. The corollary of the causeless in matter is the unearned in spirit.

To me, formalness requires you to be on your best behavior. This naturally puts the focus on how you act, which promotes focusing on yourself, which instantly kills all hope of true connection.

healing yourself is an opening to true happiness. letting go of the mental burdens you carry from the past will help your mind become clearer and more aligned with the natural flow of life. often the hurt that weighs you down functions as a wall that stops you from fully engaging with the present moment. unprocessed hurt also limits the flow of compassion because too much of our energy is focused on surviving one day at a time. this hinders the ability to deepen interpersonal connections. the happiness that is derived from being able to exist peacefully in the present moment is a quality that must be developed deliberately. happiness does not just happen; you need to tend your inner garden, remove the weeds, and plant the right seeds.

Exercise Two Exploring Self-Compassion Through Letter Writing PART ONE Everybody has something about themselves that they don’t like; something that causes them to feel shame, to feel insecure or not “good enough.” It is the human condition to be imperfect, and feelings of failure and inadequacy are part of the experience of living. Try thinking about an issue that tends to make you feel inadequate or bad about yourself (physical appearance, work or relationship issues, etc.). How does this aspect of yourself make you feel inside—scared, sad, depressed, insecure, angry? What emotions come up for you when you think about this aspect of yourself? Please try to be as emotionally honest as possible and to avoid repressing any feelings, while at the same time not being melodramatic. Try to just feel your emotions exactly as they are—no more, no less. PART TWO Now think about an imaginary friend who is unconditionally loving, accepting, kind, and compassionate. Imagine that this friend can see all your strengths and all your weaknesses, including the aspect of yourself you have just been thinking about. Reflect upon what this friend feels toward you, and how you are loved and accepted exactly as you are, with all your very human imperfections. This friend recognizes the limits of human nature and is kind and forgiving toward you. In his/her great wisdom this friend understands your life history and the millions of things that have happened in your life to create you as you are in this moment. Your particular inadequacy is connected to so many things you didn’t necessarily choose: your genes, your family history, life circumstances—things that were outside of your control. Write a letter to yourself from the perspective of this imaginary friend—focusing on the perceived inadequacy you tend to judge yourself for. What would this friend say to you about your “flaw” from the perspective of unlimited compassion? How would this friend convey the deep compassion he/she feels for you, especially for the discomfort you feel when you judge yourself so harshly? What would this friend write in order to remind you that you are only human, that all people have both strengths and weaknesses? And if you think this friend would suggest possible changes you should make, how would these suggestions embody feelings of unconditional understanding and compassion? As you write to yourself from the perspective of this imaginary friend, try to infuse your letter with a strong sense of the person’s acceptance, kindness, caring, and desire for your health and happiness. After writing the letter, put it down for a little while. Then come back and read it again, really letting the words sink in. Feel the compassion as it pours into you, soothing and comforting you like a cool breeze on a hot day. Love, connection, and acceptance are your birthright. To claim them you need only look within yourself.

Give yourself some pleasure: wash your hands in warm water, eat an apple, or listen to music. Pleasure releases natural opioids that soothe and settle the brain’s stress machinery. Think of things you feel grateful for or glad about, things that bring a little smile. Connect with someone you like, either directly or in your imagination.

Sometimes the effects of frugal simplicity may be the reverse of what is intended or expected. For instance, although frugality is said to foster humility, some of the ancients who practiced it took pride in their austere lifestyle and came to see themselves as superior to others. Diogenes is a case in point; no one ever accused him of humility. On one occasion at a banquet he supposedly trampled on Plato’s rich carpets, saying, “Thus do I trample on the empty pride of Plato,” to which Plato responded, “With quite as much pride yourself, O Diogenes.”23 Spartan austerity, monastic self-discipline, bucolic naturalness, and working-class frugality may carry positive associations, but other associations are also possible. Monasteries sometimes became rife with religious narcissism and intrigue. Peasants may live close to nature, but they have also enjoyed a long-standing reputation for being ignorant, greedy, and cunning. Struggling against economic adversity may foster virtues such as resilience, self-sufficiency, and solidarity with one’s community, whereas prosperous leafy suburbs may be hotbeds of smug, self-serving complacency; but poverty can also be a breeding ground for crime, alcoholism, drug addiction, child abuse, delinquency, and depression, while a privileged upbringing can sometimes instill moral integrity and an impressive sense of social obligation—the emperor-philosopher Marcus Aurelius being a case in point. The general point here is that the link between living frugally or simply and practicing the moral virtues is not a necessary connection. A frugal lifestyle is no guarantee of a virtuous character.

Lack of groundedness due to spiritual “highs.” When you work through and into the depths of your rebirth, you may occasionally find yourself "strong" emotionally, and you will be much less rooted in your earthen body whenever this occurs. This "danger," as mentioned in the introduction paragraph to this section, is more like a symptom. Most people will experience that groundlessness through the kundalini awakening excitement. Your higher chakras will be wide open, and you'll have the ability to be overwhelmed by what you can now experience. Whenever you feel like this–dreamy, disturbed, floaty, almost cloud-like–start a deep breath. Make one hand into your navel's fist and imagine you could drop a cord straight down into the earth from this spot in your body. Felt grounded and affirmed with your human body as this cord drops and connects with nature. This simulation will relieve these "high" symptoms as they occur. • Jerkiness & muscle spasms As with the argument just above, jerkiness and muscle spasms are signs of kundalini awakening that will undergo much (if not all) of their systems. It is only coded as a "risk" or "danger" because the individual may not think that these actions are linked to his or her awakening and are scared of his or her own well-being. If you ever have occasional spasms or unwanted jerks, take a deep breath and try to feel at ease. These are normal and will pass, "growing pains" synonymous with awakening. Ultimately, you will no longer have them at all, but for now, breathe deeply, and accept them. They're, believe it or not, a good sign. • Finding yourself alone in the “dark night of the soul.” Another symptom of awakening is the "dark night of the soul" experience. This period of time will come to pass for anyone involved in kundalini awakening, and it's not necessarily a fun time, which is why it's coded as a "danger" or "risk." Essentially, the "dark night of the soul" is when you feel like you've hit the lowest low. It's the time you confront all the defects within yourself and know that you can only step upwards, which is an overwhelming task. You may lose someone near you, like a mentor, a friend, or someone you love. You may feel directionless or doubt everything you thought you knew was true, real and nice. If you feel these things, you have not failed to wake up; know that to your core's depths. You didn't fail; you are on the right track. Keep close tabs on that person for those who know someone very emotionally sensitive that is trying to awaken kundalini. The emotionally vulnerable among us are at great risk because, alone, they go through these times. If they're too dejected and directionless, it can mean their lives, but we can always guard against it. Together we are stronger as a community, and each of us with that backing force will make it through this dark night.

Horseman is the haunting sequel to the 1820 novel The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving and takes place two decades after the events that unfolded in the original. We are introduced to 14-year-old trans boy Bente “Ben” Van Brunt, who has been raised by his idiosyncratic grandparents - lively Brom “Bones” Van Brunt and prim Kristina Van Tassel - in the small town of Sleepy Hollow, New York, where gossip and rumour run rife and people are exceedingly closed-minded. He has lived with them on their farm ever since he was orphaned when his parents, Bendix and Fenna, died in suspicious and enigmatic circumstances. Ben and his only friend, Sander, head into the woodland one Autumn day to play a game known as Sleepy Hollow Boys, but they are both a little startled when they witness a group of men they recognise from the village discussing the headless, handless body of a local boy that has just been found. But this isn't the end; it is only the beginning. From that moment on, Ben feels an otherworldly presence following him wherever he ventures, and one day while scanning his grandfather’s fields he catches a fleeting glimpse of a weird creature seemingly sucking blood from a victim. An evil of an altogether different nature. But Ben knows this is not the elusive Horseman who has been the primary focus of folkloric tales in the area for many years because he can both feel and hear his presence. However, unlike others who fear the Headless Horseman, Ben can hear whispers in the woods at the end of a forbidden path, and he has visions of the Horseman who says he is there to protect him. Ben soon discovers connections between the recent murders and the death of his parents and realises he has been shaded from the truth about them his whole life. Thus begins a journey to unravel the mystery and establish his identity in the process. This is an enthralling and compulsively readable piece of horror fiction building on Irvings’ solid ground. Evoking such feelings as horror, terror, dread and claustrophobic oppressiveness, this tale invites you to immerse yourself in its sinister, creepy and disturbing narrative. The staggering beauty of the remote village location is juxtaposed with the darkness of the demons and devilish spirits that lurk there, and the village residents aren't exactly welcoming to outsiders or accepting of anyone different from their norm. What I love the most is that it is subtle and full of nuance, instead of the usual cheap thrills with which the genre is often pervaded, meaning the feeling of sheer panic creeps up on you when you least expect, and you come to the sudden realisation that the story has managed to get under your skin, into your psyche and even into your dreams (or should that be nightmares?) Published at a time when the nights are closing in and the light diminishes ever more rapidly, not to mention with Halloween around the corner, this is the perfect autumnal read for the spooky season full of both supernatural and real-world horrors. It begins innocuously enough to lull you into a false sense of security but soon becomes bleak and hauntingly atmospheric as well as frightening before descending into true nightmare-inducing territory. A chilling and eerie romp, and a story full of superstition, secrets, folklore and old wives’ tales and with messages about love, loss, belonging, family, grief, being unapologetically you and becoming more accepting and tolerant of those who are different. Highly recommended.

Single clean. The single clean is a natural progression from the swing and is the intermediary point between the swing and many of the overhead lifts. The clean introduces hand insertion, alignment points connected to the rack position, and positioning of the kettlebell in the hand in order to avoid injury and grip fatigue. It also teaches you how to use your legs to transmit vertical power from the lower to upper body. With practice, your clean becomes a smooth, rhythmic movement that you can sustain for extended lengths of time, although it may take hundreds of practice repetitions before it flows and becomes polished. Resting the kettlebell on the forearm is a distinguishing characteristic of kettlebells that makes them behave differently than dumbbells and makes them effective for developing the fitness that comes with high-repetition resistance training. By placing most of the load on the forearm, the muscles of the hand and grip are able to relax. It takes practice before the kettlebell will move smoothly in your hand and into position. Sometimes you will have bad repetitions and the kettlebell will crash into your forearm. To make this learning process a little kinder, you can wear wrist wraps or wristbands. In time your technique will become more polished and the kettlebell will just float into position on your arm in cleans and snatches, and at that point you may prefer to not use any wraps at all. However, it is an option for those with more tender arms—no sense giving yourself bruises if you do not need to. With the kettlebell on the floor, sit back with your hips and grip the handle with the fingers of one hand (see figure 7.11, a and b). Swing the kettlebell back through your legs as you did in the one-handed swing (see figure 7.11c), and as it swings forward, keep your forearm braced against your body (see figure 7.11d). During the swing, your arm comes away from the body as inertia pulls the kettlebell forward and up. During the clean, on the other hand, the arm does not disconnect from body, and at the point where the arm would disconnect during the swing, it instead moves vertically along the front of your body. Imagine you are standing inside a chimney. The walls of the chimney block you so that you cannot move out or to the side; you can only move the kettlebell up and down the chimney wall. When the hips reach forward extension, pull with the hip on the working side and give a gentle tug with your trapezius on the same side, pulling the kettlebell up the chimney (see figure 7.11e). Before the kettlebell settles to the chest, loosen your grip and open your hand to insert your fingers as deeply into the handle as you can at a curved angle until the medial portion of your forearm, the ulna, blocks you from inserting the hand any further (see figure 7.11f). Complete the vertical pull by letting the kettlebell rest on your chest and arm (see figure 7.11g) into what is called the rack position. This

MAKING BLISS BRAIN A HABIT I want Bliss Brain to become a habit for you, as it is for the One Percent. Once you experience the neurochemicals of bliss I describe in Chapter 5, and they start to condition your brain, you’ll be hooked for life. Within 8 weeks you’ll build the neural circuits to regulate your negative emotions and control your attention, as we saw in Chapter 6. You’ll turn on the Enlightenment Circuit and downgrade the suffering of Selfing. Within a few months you’ll have created the brain hardware of resilience, creativity, and joy. You’ll transform feeling good from a state to a trait. Then, Bliss Brain isn’t just how you feel. Bliss Brain is who you are. Bliss Brain has become your nature, hardwired into the circuits of the four lobes of your brain. It has become your possession, and one so precious that you would never give it up. No one can ever take it away from you. PERSPECTIVE ON LOCAL LIFE When you flip the switch into Bliss Brain in meditation each day, you find yourself in a place of infinite peace and joy. You’re in a place of pure consciousness. You’re not limited by your body or your history. Experiencing this state feels like the only thing that really matters in life. Local life and local mind have meaning and purpose only when they’re lived from this place of nonlocal mind. Daily morning meditation is what anchors you to the experience of infinite awareness. All the rest of your life is then lived from that place of connection with nonlocal mind. It frames everything, putting local reality into perspective. All the things that seem so important when you’re trapped inside the limits of a local mind seem trivial: money, fame, sex, admiration, opinions, body image, deadlines, goals, achievements, failures, problems, solutions, needs, routines, self-talk, physical ailments, the state of the world, comfort, insults, impulses, discomfort, memories, thoughts, desires, frustrations, plans, timelines, tragedies, events, news, sickness, entertainment, emotions, hurts, games, wounds, compliments, wants, pains, aspirations, past, future, worries, disappointment, urgent items, and demands for your time and attention. All these things fade into insignificance. All that remains is consciousness. The vast universal now, infused with perfection. This becomes the perspective from which you view your local life. It’s the starting point for each day. It becomes the origination point for everything you think and do that day. Your local reality is shaped by nonlocal mind. You are everything. You have everything. You lack nothing. You proceed into your day, creating from this anchor of perfection. What you create reflects this perfection.

When you train the mind to observe things as they really are, to take in reality without projecting your emotions onto it and without trying to control it, happiness will become more available to you—this is how you open yourself up to your loving human nature. Happiness requires intentional action, healing, letting go, and teaching the mind to settle into the present moment.

They Respect Your Boundaries Emotionally mature people are innately courteous because they naturally honor boundaries. They’re looking for connection and closeness, not intrusion. For emotionally immature people, on the other hand, getting close to someone often leads to taking the person for granted. They seem to think closeness means manners don’t matter. Emotionally mature people will respect your individuality. They never assume that if you love them, you’ll want the same things they do. Instead, they take your feelings and boundaries into account in any interaction. This may sound like a lot of work, but it isn’t; emotionally mature people automatically tune in to how others are feeling. Real empathy makes consideration of other people second nature. An important gesture of courtesy and good boundaries in relationships is not to tell partners or friends what they should feel or think. Another is respecting that others have the final say on what their motivations are. In contrast, immature people who are looking for control or enmeshment may “psychoanalyze” you to their own advantage, telling you what you really meant or how you need to change your thinking. This is a sign that they disrespect your boundaries. Emotionally mature people may tell you how they feel about what you did, but they don’t pretend to know you better than you know yourself. If you were neglected by emotionally immature parents during childhood, you may find yourself willing to put up with unsolicited analysis and unwanted advice from others. This is common among people who are hungry for personal feedback that shows someone is thinking about them. But this kind of “advice” isn’t nourishing attention; rather, it’s motivated by a desire to be in control.

Maximum positive attention (the most valuable resource in this wild new world) comes from being absolutely yourself, operating from your true nature, to connect with the true nature of people, animals, plants, events, and situations.

You are just living with cycles, like the rest of nature. The magic is yours, a witch unto yourself. You are beholden to no one but connected to many as you stand at the forest’s edge. May the strong ones guard you May the old ones guide you May enchantment surround you This day and all the days of your life.

I don't have the answers. Maybe depression's the natural reaction to a world full of cruelty and pain. But the thing I know about depression is if you want to survive it, you have to train yourself to hold on; when you can see no reason to keep going, you cannot imagine a future worth seeing, you keep moving anyway. That's not delusion. That's hope. It's a muscle you exercise so it's strong when you need it. You feed it with books and art and dogs who rest their head on your leg, and human connection with people who are genuinely interested and excited; you feed it with growing a tomato and baking sourdough and making a baby laugh and standing at the edge of oceans and feeling a horse's whiskers on your palm and bear hugs and late-night talks over whiskey and a warm happy sigh on your neck and the unexpected perfect song on the radio, and mushroom trips with a friend who giggles at the way the trees aren't acting right, and jumping in creeks, and lying in the grass under the stars, and driving with the windows down on a swirly two-lane road. You stock up like a fucking prepper buying tubs of chipped beef and powdered milk and ammo. You stock up so some part of you knows and remembers, even in the dark, all that's worth saving in this world.

friend can see all your strengths and all your weaknesses, including the aspect of yourself you have just been thinking about. Reflect upon what this friend feels toward you, and how you are loved and accepted exactly as you are, with all your very human imperfections. This friend recognizes the limits of human nature and is kind and forgiving toward you. In his/her great wisdom this friend understands your life history and the millions of things that have happened in your life to create you as you are in this moment. Your particular inadequacy is connected to so many things you didn’t necessarily choose: your genes, your family history, life circumstances—things that were outside of your control.

You have no meaningful connections in your life, not to a mate, a lover, friends, your work, a hobby, a pet, or, really, anything beyond yourself and your symptoms. That is not healthy.

The answer is to reverse this perspective: Stop fixating on what other people are saying and doing. Stop fixating on the money, the connections, the outward appearance of things. Instead look inward, focus on the smaller internal changes that lay the groundwork for a much larger change in fortune. It is the difference between grasping at an illusion and immersing yourself in reality. And reality is what will liberate and transform you.

You begin to find comfort in simple and essential stuff as your soul expands, but you create apathy for a repetitive career, a toxic relationship, fake human relationships, etc. I don't suggest you give up your simple life in order to awaken your spirit. It's nice to have healthy relationships and love-filled interactions with others, but you may find yourself challenging other issues about your identity, relationships and laws created by society at the beginning of soul awakening. You find yourself in a bond with nature  When you felt alive in the vicinity of nature and felt grateful for seeing the landscapes, plants, wildlife, stars, mountains, etc., you may have developed a rare and precious connection with nature. It is no wonder that knowledge has been raised by those who find peace in existence. Such people know their priorities in life and are grateful to God for creating this beautiful world. You may also become more conscious of the rights of climate and animals. You might want to plant trees and live in a place to breathe in the fresh air.

Now, allow yourself to consider the radical nature of what this passage says about the deepest motivations of the hearts of God’s people. They have connected their deepest love, belief, joy, and faith to someone they have never seen, heard, or touched. They have staked the hopes and dreams of their lives to this invisible One. Their relationship to him is one of life-altering love. When they think of him, they experience joy, joy so deep that it cannot be expressed.

Vulnerability gives you back the connection to life, for being defenseless you come home to yourself...

Noting the light anywhere is a cozy thing to do because it’s one of the easier ways we can connect to nature.

Each of us comes into the world whole and able to receive love and nurturing from our parents as naturally as we breathe. We are connected to our social context, to all parts of ourselves, to the universe, and to the Divine.