Jacob Nordby Quotes

Blessed are the weird people: poets, misfits, writers mystics, painters, troubadours for they teach us to see the world through different eyes.

Every pain, addiction, anguish, longing, depression, anger or fear is an orphaned part of us seeking joy, some disowned shadow wanting to return to the light and home of ourselves.

We wait, starving for moments of high magic to inspire us, but life is full of common enchantment waiting for our alchemists eyes to notice.

You know that crazy heart of yours? The one with lightning crackling and moonlight shining through it. The one you’ve been told not to trust because it often led you off the beaten path. The one so many have misunderstood your entire life. Trust it. Feed it. Grow it. It’s your greatest treasure and will point the way to your highest destiny. It is the voice of your soul.

You have left a trail of breadcrumb clues which will lead you to the place where your purpose and passion have already met and are simply waiting for you to find them.

You can’t know this right now, but… your ragged, rugged honesty… your crazy, passionate, naked vulnerability… your trusting plunge into the unknown of Life at every turn… your journey of love and healing… these change your world, the world of those around you and the world as a whole. Someday you’ll know how important you are.

When you no longer need approval from others like the air you breathe, the possibilities in life are endless. What an interesting little prison we build from the invisible bricks of other people's opinions.

Your enormous soul had so many choices of who it could show up as. It chose you.

Dare to dream again. For dreaming is the language of your soul, And nothing your soul truly desires could ever be wrong or impossible.

It's a funny thing, how it works... The moment we stop trying so hard to be someone, we become ourselves--only what was there all along, waiting and peeking out from behind all the masks we wore. And when this happens, we discover that Who We Really Are is much greater than anything we might have pretended or even hoped to be.

When in brief flashes of serendipity you glimpse what you were born to do... Do it. No matter what. Take steps toward it, even if they are depressingly small at first. With each inch closer to your central magic, you will feel it. It is unmistakable for anything else. It's called purpose.

We keep waiting to be crowned, Waiting for the world to judge us worthy of offering our brightest, most empowered and beautiful stuff. But that won’t happen. Your next certification or ordination or degree will do nothing for your expression in the world until you accept how unspeakably worthy and valuable you already are to be here and share yourself with us.

Writer's block is just another name for fear.

When you no longer need approval from others like the air you breathe, the possibilities in life are endless. What an interesting little prison we build from the invisible bricks of other people’s opinions.’ – JACOB NORDBY

The great mission of our day is not conquering the sea or space, disease or tyranny. The grand quest which calls to the hero in every one of us is to become fully alive--to stand up and claim our birthright, which is inner freedom, love and radiant purpose. By fulfilling this, we transform the world.

What do you really want? Did you know that every single one of your desires is an expression of your soul's longing to experience human life as you? It's true. These pure impulses get filtered through our conditioning and show up distorted at times, but follow them back to their source and nothing you desire is anything but good and possible.

Hello," Life says, "Remember me? We started out together here When you were just a bundle Of innocent amazement. Remember how you saw the world With nothing but wonder? We were such rowdy playmates then. We painted on the sky with clouds And made magic out of Clothespins and peanut butter. Remember, can you, how I became stained and heavy With trouble? Not safe now. Lots of no. They dressed me in painful clothes And made you wear them, too. You don't recognize me, do you But I've never abandoned you Or lost my wild, happy desire To show you Play with you Kiss you Hide and seek down twisty paths And always discover more. Want to run away with me again? Shall we elope without ever leaving Because that's possible, you know. I've never been anywhere but here Waiting for you To remember.

With poetry and writing, the question isn’t “do you know the right words?”. The real question is, “can you make words from the unwordable, chisel blocks of raw silence into shapes and touch our souls?

Welcome the small cracking of your hard-clodded shell, Embrace the warm sting of tears, Kiss the shadow which frightens you awake as you turn the corners of your day, Love the whole of everything, Smooth sunshine skies and Jagged edges Which all seek us out in Constant whisper and touch To say, 'hello, Beautiful. You’re alive

Living is art. Breathing and heart beating is music. Seeing is painting the world with our eyes. Touching is sculpting the shape of everything. Life is the most intense art of all.

The soul of us is never confused about why it is here. It only asks us to wake up and see the breadcrumb clues it has been leaving all along. It asks us to have courage to face the wounds we have been hiding, allow it to heal them and untangle the heavy, snarled patterns. Because the soul of us has no doubt whatever that it can and, if we allow it to express fully, can live a life of such power and joy through us that our human selves will be astonished.

I need to be startlingly clear. This thing of finding your authentic voice, expressing your blessed weirdness and revealing your soul isn't an elegant process. You don't do it to be cool. You don't do it to get laid or get rich. It's only real when it is ruthless, relentless and inevitable. But it is also a matter of personal and collective survival. Yes, it's that important. You are that critical.

I don't analyze beautiful. I sit in its presence and love the wholeness of it--the sweet and sad and raw and bright together. Poetry is that, the weaving of light-shadow. Making words from the unwordable.

The art of living is to fall in love with life over and over again. It is no easy thing to walk through the world with an open heart, embracing everything, and also stand true, allowing no poison to affect us. But be cracked open often. Pour yourself into life withholding nothing. Heal and be healed, This is the way of living in full.

Saying that “life is short” is such a cliche. And it’s true. In fact, we only have five minutes to be here. In the really big scheme of things, not even that long. We humans don’t even have the lifespan of fruit flies if you look at the bigger picture. In other words, we don’t have a second—not even a second—to waste on petty drama, on living fake, shallow lives, on swallowing our truth, or on hiding our light. We only dance around the flame of this gorgeous human existence for moments and the one thing important at all is loving beautifully.

Come, come into this circle of grace and friendship. Come bringing only your open heart. You owe us nothing but truth, you need no heavy armor here. Show us your beautiful scars, the evidence of adventures you’ve survived. Tell your stories from the road. This space is home. You are safe to come as you are without fear.

We are, all of us, always only one breath or softening of our thought away from an invasion of divine wonder and fresh miracles. Soul waits for any small opening of our hearts to steal into everyday life.

I have come to differentiate not at all between what is spiritual and the rest of life. There is only Life, all of it is good and the more I am aware of this in every moment, the more my spirit comes alive.

Too many people confuse real magic with magical thinking. Real magic isn't a trick and it transforms our lives. Magical thinking is denial. Real magic is what happens when we break old belief patterns and have the courage to employ the native laws of the Universe

False humility is a form of psychosis which was imprinted on most of us since birth. It is a mental illness because it locks us in a victim state of keeping our light turned down, denying who we really are and silently begging for permission to simply show up as ourselves in the world. But there is good news. This is a jail whose lock is broken. We can walk free whenever we know the truth, and by so doing we show others an example of an end to madness. An example of freedom.

There is no greater moment in life than that when we discover the unique design which has shaped our lives from the moment of birth, save one: The instant we recognize destiny, accept it and then begin to create the rest of our own lives within it using the power of free will. When this threshold has been crossed, nothing can stop our inevitable journey into the highest good for ourselves and all around us. This is healing. This is actualization. This is integration. This is joy. And it is the birthright of every incarnated soul on this planet.

Find your purpose, find your passion. Find your passion, find your purpose. Turn either way, it doesn't matter. Because how do you separate conjoined twins like these?

Life loves to reveal herself to the raw, courageous doubters; to those who are willing to live inside the question.

Your weirdness will make you stronger, your dark side will keep you whole, your vulnerability will connect you to the suffering of our world, your creativity will set you free. There is nothing wrong with you.

Like the body craves oxygen, the mind is desperate for certainty. It believes that without a safe foothold on reality, it will die. But the fascinating thing is that the illusion of certainty is exactly the opposite of safety because it hardens and narrows the vision to make everything fit its own scope. Then when new information arrives which would be its ally, the mind pushes it away in favor of the leaky life raft to which it clings, sinking all the while beneath the waves of change. In fact, the only antidote for this is to embrace 'I don’t know' so deeply that a powerful, dynamic safety emerges. This is like learning to surf so well that a tsunami wave shows up as a challenge to test our mastery.

Relax into this understanding—nothing is wasted. All of your experiences, all of the broken pieces of relationships and half-formed careers, everything you are and have been—it may appear to be a basket of dusty shards, but come with me now and meet other creators so you can see that, somehow, every jagged little piece of you will find its place in a kaleidoscope of brilliance if you stay with the task of becoming yourself.

The master in us all lives behind the masks and roles and wounds and beliefs. It calls us to live deep, full, radical lives. It asks us not to wait until we are told by anyone that we have arrived. It invites us forward, across the line of fear and unworthiness, to experience mastery in this moment--as much as we can right now. To learn from stumbling. To rise again and keep walking until we no longer notice our feet in their effortless dance. But mostly not to wait until some distant, perfect someday. Mastery is now.

It’s not all bad. Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an inability to join in, physical shame, and self-loathing—they are not all bad. Those devils have also been my angels. Without them, I would never have disappeared into language, literature, the mind, laughter, and all the mad intensities that made and unmade

The thing is, you're beautiful. Yes, you… In your wild, mundane glory. Your daily life hides from you the possibilities of why you’re here And who you are. But never forget that every breath you take is actual alchemy. With your eyes you record visions of this place. With your fingertips you read the bumps in life, Sending messages back from whence you came. You’re a soul traveler, An explorer. You make this place home for now; Trying on the costumes, Playing out your roles. Every so often, take off your masks. Drop your robes. See yourself reflected in the very mirror of your life. And remember… When you leave this stage, The only thing you will wonder is, “Did I love brilliantly?

To reclaim our natural power and this birthright of real magic, we must get naked and face ourselves. The truth of Who You Really Are is vast. It is genius. It crackles with electricity and sensuality and other forbidden, dangerous things. You have longed for it all your life. You catch glimpses of it from the corner of your eye. A riff of music reminds you, a surge of ecstasy during sex brings you home, a crisp Autumn wind carries some long forgotten scent which thrills you for inexplicable reasons. A thousand tiny hints show up to seduce you awake and lead you back into your true nature, but they flee when you try to grasp them and leave you wondering if you were just imagining things. You weren’t though. This quality of richness and balance and home is Who You Really Are. That is the kingdom we seek and it waits for us to find it. It wants us to regain our rightful place.

One of the simplest ways to unlock our natural capacity for imagination is to give ourselves some random input.

We, the world, want our soul back.

Art is what happens when we have time for something other than basic survival.

If you want to test this and feel how hot the flame of honesty burns, try it next time you are tempted to play some kind of shadow game to get sex, to get a raise, or to get attention. Ask, “… if I told the simple truth about my needs and desires in this moment, what would happen?

Life is an endless attempt to word the unwordable, to make what cannot be touched walk on the ground, to embody what can never be fit inside a single lifetime. We see reflections of ourselves in sunrises, hear our perfection in thunderstorms and babies' laughter--touch, taste and feel--and then try to somehow remember all of that while taking out the trash, paying bills and a million other ways we have invented to forget. We weave together within ourselves mud and spirit, shadow and light, animal and angel. No wonder humans feel crazy most of the time. But you aren't crazy. You are doing a heroic thing by being here as yourself.

The trick is to ride the wave, Fast, wide-open and in deep Now-magic. Free, burning fear for fuel Generous, knowing there is always more where that came from. Cresting, spray of liquid jewels hanging, shining in the sun and wind. Flying down the wave in graceful slices. Rolling, tumbling under, over Breathless falling, floating into the deep dark beneath. Rising, face breaks the surface Laughing Kneeling, standing Riding again. Sunset waits behind the horizon But daylight begs us to swim Out beyond Where our feet can’t touch bottom. Into the deep wild Where the next wave can sweep us higher, Show us what else is possible In this marvelous place.

Success in this brave new era does not look like success as it has always been defined before—and neither does failure. The only success now is living and creating a work-of-art life: unique, rich with meaning, naked of anything we don’t care about, and ruthless about carving out something absolutely real from a world that has gorged itself on fakeness and become critically ill from it. The only failure now is pulling back from that quest because of fear. In

There are times on Earth when extraordinary consciousness invades everyday life. There are times on Earth when unseen forces make a calamity of the status quo. There are times on Earth when it seems as though a divine arsonist has set fire to the world as we know it. — We live in such times.

Never forget that you are one of a kind. Never forget that if there weren’t any need for you in all your uniqueness to be on this earth, you wouldn’t be here in the first place. And never forget, no matter how overwhelming life’s challenges and problems seem to be, that one person can make a difference in the world. In fact, it is always because of one person that all the changes that matter in the world come about. So be that one person.

I can’t change the world or solve its problems. That’s too much. Too big. But I can turn and honestly face my own problems, fears, and pain. I can learn to love myself. I can love and serve those within my own arms’ reach. I can turn my own life into art. Somehow when I do this, my life is enough and I have done my part.

The art of living is to fall in love over and over again. It is no easy thing to walk through the world with an open heart, embracing everything, and also stand true, allowing no poison to infect us. But be cracked open often. Pour yourself into life withholding nothing. Heal and be healed. This is the way of living in full.

There are no self made heroes or leaders. No matter how rugged or self assured, everyone requires a cast of players - friends, mentors, lovers, critics, villains and supporters - who call, invite, seduce, goad and encourage them to finally step into their true power. We are all heroes and leaders in some way, and we all need each other.

Let Life race you out beyond your own boundaries over and over again until you are comfortable with watching the Map of Normal's edge disappear behind you. Let Life show you that it is safe to exceed your own expectations and reputation--and prove that the only danger in following her into the wilderness is a loss of your own fear. This is when we gain the warrior's heart, the master's eye, and the student's mind. After that, Life holds our hand in every adventure and shows us things not possible before.

You are a living mystery school… Your blood and bones contain ancient wisdom… Your heart is a treasure map to Authentic Self.

the corrosive influence of television,

she also shows up with reminders that life is good, that my spirit is on a beautiful journey here as me, and that all of this is worth it.

Success for anything or anyone is becoming what it was designed to be. That’s it.

We don’t know what our purpose for living is and we are terrified to admit it to anyone—especially ourselves.

We are desperate to feel that our lives matter and we have a terrible suspicion that they might not.

And Abraham Maslow wrote, “A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What one can be, one must be.

The Muses get impatient when we refuse to pay attention to their nudges.

we can’t bear the risk that it might not pay off in ways that society values. Fuck society!

nameless desperation that haunts us in this world we have created—a world of boxes and cubicles and endless meetings and false urgency to do things we don’t give a shit about.

Anaïs Nin seduces me into raw truth and beauty and courage. “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

You have left a trail of breadcrumb clues that will lead you to the place where your purpose and passion have already met and are simply waiting for you to find them.

Creativity is the process by which imagination becomes reality. It exists in bountiful supply within everyone and calls on our innate gifts of curiosity, attention, and loving connection

The problem is that we have forgotten how to make our own lives works of art and we cannot seem to find enough ways to gorge ourselves to fill the aching sense of emptiness this leaves behind.

Besides being fun, creativity offers a path out of stagnation, unhappiness, self-judgment, and the kind of robotic living that leaves so many of us feeling unfulfilled. Creativity is a forgotten cure

Be prepared, however, that reclaiming joy isn't always easy. Many people have shut down joy so long ago that they struggle to remember how it felt, and new joy feels squarely outside their comfort zone.

Your superpower is your sensitivity. Your sensitivity is also your Achilles’ heel. Your greatest gift to the world is on the flip side of the same coin as your greatest wound. In fact, if you aren’t sure what your gift is yet, take a look at what always brings you down—take a look at your darkest, weakest stuff. That will give you clues. On the reverse side of your deepest shadow, you will find your brightest light.

So long as you believe yourself to be 'only human' you have accepted life in a prison cell whose door remains locked only by your own mind. By saying, 'well, I'm only human', you have blindly submitted to all the limitations, fears, pettiness, greed and hatreds which make the common person weak and fragile. Most never become aware that another way is possible. You are human, but much more, too. The much-moreness is the vast, brilliant freedom and power which has confined itself in your humanity. If you are willing (and not everyone is, which is also a perfectly valid choice), you can begin to explore your native powers and experience freedom within limitation. When you do this, you live fully while you are here and you are no longer afraid to die. When you are not afraid of death but seek to live in a state of always-discovering, this is when life is transformed and you accept your birthright to choose and create in extraordinary fashion.

If you could possibly understand how precious and powerful your experience of this one lifetime as yourself is, you wouldn't be trying to go anywhere else. If you could know the perfection of time and space, You would slow each moment down To drain every possible nuance of juice and flavor from it. When you leave this place, your body and mind and the earth which holds you, you will look back and only wish you had known the immense richness that you hurried through trying to find other better states of being. But this is the best bite. Heaven is here. Nirvana is now. As soon as you know that for sure Your life will never be the same again. In fact, in every way it seeks to get your attention. begs you to awaken to the magic right before your eyes.

Having a regular creative practice sends a powerful wake-up call to your inner creative self, which in turn begins to work its magic on every aspect of your life, imbuing everything from mundane tasks to your highest calling with curiosity and possibility.

Latin root imaginari, which means “to picture oneself.” Imagination is a kind of seeing, the ability to envision something that is not physically present for the eyes to see, or to put yourself in a different place than you are, using your senses in a hypothetical way.

Among the greatest tragedies is a person who believes that they aren't meant to win--by winning I mean find their purpose, passion and joy in life. They believe that other people have better DNA or happiness genes or something, but that they themselves are missing a critical chromosome. This is a lie and it is begging to be un-believed. For the moment we know the truth about ourselves, we can take both responsibility for our own lives and inspired action to create exactly the life which is our birthright. In other words, you were meant to win. You were created for joy.

Living out a creative life means taking ultimate responsibility for everything in it. It means that we are not waiting for anyone or anything to come along and give us the keys to happiness. It also means that we become leaders by example of what is possible when an individual lives by their own lights.

When we understand that our unique selves and the lives we live are meant to be art, all of us can accept this dare to challenge the status quo. What I mean by status quo is the soul-deadening homogeny that stands there like a great, stupid thug blocking us from passing through the gate into a life that is satisfying because it is our own.

This is where we are right now, as a whole. No one is left out of the loop. We are experiencing a reality based on a thin veneer of lies and illusions. A world where greed is our God and wisdom is sin, where division is key and unity is fantasy, where the ego-driven cleverness of the mind is praised, rather than the intelligence of the heart.

But there is a deep sense of anxiety that pervades our entire civilizaton right now. Something is not right. All of our machines and finely-tuned processes and the massive acceleration of life’s pace are starting to sound and feel a lot like a poorly loaded washing machine that goes “whomp … whomp … whomp … whomp-whomp-WHOMP-WHOMP-WHOMMMMP!” when the spin cycle takes off. Something doesn’t feel right. Something is telling us that there is imbalance in the world, perhaps as a result of all of our advances

I traded my pursuit of joy for what I thought was success. Sadly, many people who have achieved high levels of outward success have done the same. If this describes you, then I invite you to change your definition of success, to something more like this: Success is the ability to cultivate and experience joy in all aspects of your life.

the creative process, feelings and desires are the fuel, and imagination provides the muscle—the machinery of new ideas and resources. Imagination really is a muscle we can strengthen at any time in our lives, as we practice the habit of seeing in new ways.

Welcoming Randomness

First, we might use awareness to see things as they really are, rather than as we think they should be.

I saw a direct connection between consciously expressing our creativity and healing our lives.

so that we can live fuller and more meaningful lives.

Imagination is personal—each of us does it differently (though

This book will offer you a path back home to what I call your inner creative self and help you more fully express this in your life.

the inner creative self as the source of imagination. Creativity is the action that springs from this special place inside us.

The trick is that we can't “think” our way into the inner creative self. It's more like a muscle that we can develop through active practice.

No amount of believing you can do those things by itself will make it happen. But you can teach the body and mind to achieve astounding feats, step-by-step. This is the promise of practice.

This book is an invitation to come back home to yourself in two ways. First, by building a creative practice that revitalizes your creative birthright. And second, by teaching you to channel this creative power into other areas of your life, such as your job, your home, your relationships with others,

If we experience trauma, especially in our formative years, it can lead to patterns of anxiety, destructive self-talk, inner criticism, procrastination, perfectionism, addictive behaviors, self-doubt, or feelings of being not valuable or lacking a purpose.

The biggest threat that rejection poses to our creativity is a learned resistance to making mistakes and failing. Failure is an essential element of experimentation, growth, and creative expression. We have to be able to try new things. Rejection tells us that there is a “right” way, and that your value is tied to your ability to get it right. Yet

Two key tools will help us throughout this process of finding and developing this weakened connection to our inner creative self: meditation and journaling.

Meditation builds the awareness and self-acceptance we need to clear the signal, and journaling boosts the power and turns up the volume, so that creativity can flow out of us without judgment.

meditation

The difference between doing any of these activities on their own and doing them as a meditative practice centers on what's going on inside you. The intent here is to build awareness of things as they are—not as you think they should be or remember they used to be.

neuropsychologist Chris Niebauer explains how recent studies have shown that the right brain, long thought to be the place where creativity resides, can evaluate situations and lead us to take actions that are in our own best interest before we ever make a left brain, logic-based, or rational decision.

ideas to help reconnect you to your intuition.

Anything you bring forward into the world from your inner creative self will be rare, valuable, and original.