ShareThisSpiritual refers to you connecting to an energy that goes beyond the thinking, feeling and physical you. Some of the topics I've described relating to spirituality include:
always what you need
faith
heros journey
ishvarapranidhana
law of attraction
meaning in life
meditation
namaste
passion and purpose
samadhi
sri and the vortex
strength
tantric philosophy
yin and yang
you at your best
Knowledge is power! Enjoy connecting to the you that is connected to the all that is.
Your outlook on life is determined by many variables; from parenting to social influences and the media. If you find you’ve adopted belief systems that do not serve you, can change and redirect them. You can try on other people’s outlooks, see things from their perspective, if it helps you create more happiness, well-being and abundance for yourself and others, hold on to it. Your beliefs are powerful; they affect your thoughts, actions, and expectations as to what will come into your life
One outlook I invite you to try on is that the Universe is always giving you exactly what you need. My mentor Dr. Srikumar Rao would say, “The Universe isn’t always giving you what you want, but it’s always giving you what you need.” (Couple that with the Rolling Stones… and you’ve got a powerful message). .
What would your days look like if you took on the belief that the experiences you were facing were happening for a reason? Think of it as Reverse Paranoia or Pronoia… Rather than thinking people are out to get you, thinking that the Universe is conspiring to help you. With this belief would you figure out how to make the best out of the situation? Would you perceive it as a blessing and maximize the experience?
It’s hard to see the meaning or reasoning behind a situation when you’re caught in the middle of it. With time you can see the big picture and create context for the experience. I invite you to look back on your experiences, particularly the ones that you coded as “bad” or “negative.” Can you create meaning for why the situation happened? Or perhaps see that it was for the best? Had the situation not happened, perhaps you wouldn’t be where you are today.
Those, “Why is this happening?” circumstances can pave the way for amazing transformations. Research shows that Post-Traumatic Growth, the opposite of post traumatic stress, occurs when people create meaning from their experiences. Positively reframing the situation gives you strength. This shift makes you more grateful and accepting of your experiences.
Shifting your outlook to a belief that things are happening for a reason paves the way for solution focused thinking. Rather than fixating on what’s not working, you can focus on looking for ways to make it work. It’s not necessary to believe that an energetic force is guiding the experience, however I find that approach personally useful. It enables me to trust in a benevolent Universe and trust that I am being guided.
Next time you are feeling stressed or your reminiscing on negative events, I invite you to try on the perspective, “The universe put this situation in front of me for a reason.” Then ask yourself what the reason or lesson might be. This will further develop your growth mindset.
For more on growth mindset see success mindset
coming soon...
coming soon...
coming soon...
coming soon...
Dr. Martin Seligman, the founder of positive psychology, describes 3 approaches people take towards happiness (the pleasant life, the engaged life and the meaningful life). Creating meaning in your life involves connecting your life and work to something greater than you. Research shows that being part of cause that helps others, positively affects our environment or spiritual purpose enhances one’s sense of meaning. Again, meaning is not something that just happens to you. It’s something you choose and a shift in perspective in what you do. Service staff can bring more meaning to their lives if they create a perception for themselves that their work enables them to serve others and thus they are serving a higher power. What brings you meaning in life will vary. You’re ability to add meaning into your life is up to you to perceive that you are contributing in your own way to a greater force and order.
coming soon...
Namaste is an Indian salutation used for both greetings and farewells. The literal translation of namaste is “The light in me honors the light in you,” but it means so much more than that. It’s an acknowledgement of the oneness and unity amongst people. When you say namaste, it is an honoring of someone on a deep soul level; you not only see the light within that person, you celebrate it as the same light that resides within all living beings.
Namaste makes me think of the movie Avatar. The Na’avi people greet each other with a phrase meaning “I see you.” Not meaning literally meaning ‘I physically see you in front of me’, but meaning ‘I see your true self, I remember you. When I see you I remember me, because we are one, we are connected.’
Broaden and build research shows us that seeing other’s from a perspective of connectedness and unity increases our positivity. Namaste!
Passion and purpose are two words my clients often refer to as the Scary P’s. It’s words they had heard for years, “Follow your passions. Discover your life’s purpose.” As though it were just that easy. Discovering your life’s purpose and passions are meant to be part of the hero’s journey (See Spiritual> Hero’s Journey). It’s a discovery that unfolds overtime. And even when you know what your purpose and passions are, that evolves as you gain more experience.
Here are 3 tools are useful when working Passion and Purpose: 1) Understand it’s like driving a car. 2) Lighten up about it. 3) Start with passion potentials. I’ll also share with you The Passion Test, a quick, self administered process for discovering your passion created by Janet and Chris Attwood.
1. There is one known about the future: it is unknown. Even though your brain will try desperately to project and plan into the future, life is like a driving a car at night. You can’t see the road for miles ahead. You can only see 500 feet in front of you. As you pass that 500 feet, you see the next 500 and you continue like that as you go along. So live in the moment. Get in your car and start the discovery to passion and purpose rather than sitting in your car complaining about how you can’t see the whole road. You’ll get there in time.
2. Lighten up about passions and purpose. When clients come to me all hung up about finding their “life’s work” or doing what they “love” to do I start by having them lighten up. The amount of emphasis and stress they have put on find this mystical thing stops them from hearing their internal voice of guidance. What you love comes from what you like. Doing work you love comes from identifying what you like to do. Make a list of things that you like and start to identify what might become a passion potential for you. What you love to do is an indication of what you are here to do.
3. Passion potentials. Passion is an energetic state. Think of the early stages of falling in love and how energetically charged it is. Shifting from an experience being something you like to something you are passionate about requires increasing the energy around it. For example, you may like photography. Engaging your passion for photography would involve doing things that enable you to enhance your experience of it. That might include taking classes, going to museums, talking to other people with similar interest, or anything else that puts your attention on that activity. Passion doesn’t happen to you, it involves actively participating in the game. So look around in your life for things that you like or that might be a potential passion. What could you do to give more energy?
Passion Test:
Make a list of 10 things that you love to do. (i.e. I love exercising, helping people, yoga, learning, meditating, dancing, researching etc). Then go through the list and compare each of the items 2 at a time. Ask yourself, if I had to choose one of these two and could not do the other one for the rest of my life, which would I choose to keep?
Ex: Never be able to exercise again or never be able to help people again? I choose being able to help people. Then I compare never help people again or never doing yoga again? I’d choose being able to help people. I compare that one to learning, meditating, dancing and researching and come up with that as my number one. Then I go back to exercise. Never be able to exercise ever again or never doing yoga again? I choose being able to do yoga. I compare it to all the others and it wins out, so that becomes my second passion. I continue down the whole list until the things I like to do are in order from greatest passion to least.
Give it a try!
coming soon...
coming soon...
You live in a culture that emphasizes fixing what’s wrong with you. You diet to change your body. You read self-help books to fix your life. Rarely does our society encourage taking the time to identify and focus on strengths.
Strengths are defined as positive traits that get reflected in one’s thoughts, feelings and behaviors (Park et al, 2004). Strengths differ from talents which are more innate and fixed. Some strengths come naturally to people, but all of them can be learned and developed. In order to utilize your strengths it’s essential to have language to describe and communicate them.
Drs. Martin Seligman and Christopher Peterson have identified and researched 24 signature strengths over the past 2 decades, in studies with hundreds of thousands of people. Their research shows that identifying and using your strengths for 2 weeks can significantly decrease depressive symptoms and increase happiness. Examples of character strengths include: curiosity and interest in the world, forgiveness, leadership, perseverance, zest, gratitude, perspective, love and the capacity to be loved, optimism, critical thinking and humor. Want to know your strengths? The Signature Strengths questionnaire is available to you for free at: http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/questionnaires.aspx.
Random strengths facts (Peterson & Seligman, 2004):
-Top strengths that correlate with life satisfaction: Zest, love, curiosity, gratitude and hope.
-Top strengths that correlate with higher GPA in kids: Perseverance, fairness, gratitude, honesty, hope, and perspective.
-Top strengths of happy families: Fairness, forgiveness, honesty, social intelligence and teamwork.
-Top strengths of effective teachers: Zest, humor and social intelligence.
Want to learn more about strengths research? Sign up for my newsletter at the top of the page. You’ll receive weekly information about positive psychology and research based approaches for increasing your happiness.
coming soon...
coming soon...
Best possible future self is a was studied by Dr. Laura King (2001) who ran a series of positive psychology experiments where participants were one group was instructed to write their vision of themselves as if they were living their life in the present and everything they were wanting had come into fruition. There goals had been met and dreams realized. The other group wrote about a more mundane topic. Both groups did this for 20 minutes, for 3 consecutive days. Those who participated in the best possible self exercise had increased positive emotions and decreased negative emotions.
Visualizing yourself at your best is a powerful way to tap into your goals and visions for the future. To align yourself with your core and what you are wanting on a deep, intuitive level.
When I first started this practice it was hard for me to tap into or communicate what I really wanted. Wanting is the first step to building desire and then stamina for creating the life you want. Visualizing and writing about yourself at your best is a great exercise for enhancing your sense of flourishing.
