Flow like water to where you want to be

Water flows to its source via the path of least resistance. It is the most powerful thing on the planet.

It does not tantrum against things or demand people or situations to change. It simply flows through anything it encounters. It slowly erodes away its obstacles. It is patient. It always gets where it is trying to go. It doesn't get stuck or attached to things.

So how can we flow like water? It starts with seeing things as they are. Cease expending energy trying to change people and things into what you need them to be. Rather invest your energy and creativity to accepting things as they are and flowing through them.

When entering an experience, encompass (see previous blog) or embrace everything that is going on in front of you. See and accept all the dynamics and interactions. Allow a way to flow through the experience to present itself. Jump in. The water is fine.

You can feel when you are flowing with your life. Things are clicking. Doors are opening. It is harmonious.

Focus and Discipline

To create the life you want, you need clear intention. This requires focus. You sometimes need to do some soul-searching to find out what is important to you. It has to be what is important to you now- not ten years ago.

As we grow, what is important to us changes. These changes sometimes manifest in "existential crises" such as midlife crises. The way to resolve an existential crisis is to redefine what is important to you. This allows you to focus and create something new. This can be done through a "rite of passage"- or consciously changing what your life is about.

Then you can attract the thing you intend to yourself. This is what The Secret and Law of Attraction talk about.

Once your intention is focused, you need discipline. You have to hold that focus long enough to for it to manifest. If you let your mind and intention go all over the place, you will create random things for ourselves. By the time the things that you intended presents itself, you are onto something else and often do not even recognize it.

Discipline allows us to work with our intention long enough to unfold it. This is illustrated through a metaphor of shooting arrows. If you shoot your arrows in the same direction, it takes you further and further toward your goal. If you shoot your arrows in all different directions, they are not able to be as focused and effective.

So take aim and keep shooting your arrows until the thing you intended presents itself. Many people give up or get distracted right before what they want appears. Focus and discipline.

The possibilities of allowing things to unfold

When I first learned to create things for myself, I tended to force things to happen. This was a huge improvement on being passive and feeling that things were happening to me.

But by forcing things to happen, we are limited to creating the thing that we have our sights set on. It is linear. "I want that job. I am going to make that happen." When we do this, we push our energy out.

By creating an intention for what you want and allowing things to unfold, you open yourself to all the possibilities associated with that intention. There may be something more beneficial than what you initially identified for yourself. When we do this, we allow energy in.

Allowing things to unfold starts with clear intention. It has to get to the core of what you really want.

Then when allowing this to unfold you have to let go of the picture of what you wanted, so you can see all the possibilities that present themselves to you.

When something presents itself to you, it your responsibility (to yourself) to explore it. Possibilites or "doorways" will open themselves to you. You can poke your head in the door to explore it without fully committing or attaching to it. I call this "free flight." If you see it is what you want, you surrender to it. If not, you move onto the next doorway that opens.

What possibilities are you presenting to yourself today? What doorways are opening? Are you allowing yourself to see them?

You better believe it!

We only allow ourselves to see the things that we believe are possible for ourselves. Otherwise, what we want could be right in front of us and we would not see it. Even if we saw it, we would discount it or push it away if we did not believe it is available to us.

Most people do not allow themselves to have what they want- because they do not believe that it is possible.

We have to somehow believe that what we want is possible. Once we believe what we want is possible, we will see it and allow ourselves to have it.

But the belief in possibility is the tough part.

It has to start with allowing yourself to have something you do believe is possible that is a step in the in the direction of what you want. Once you allow yourself to have that, you stretch your belief system to allow yourself another piece. You build confidence in yourself. Over time you come to believe that the thing you really want is possible. You prove it to yourself.

I was out on a date about a year ago and she said, "What I really want is to be a psychologist, but I could never do that." In retrospect I wish I would have said, "Well, what about being a psychologist can you see yourself doing?" Then she would have a place to start.

So what do you really want? What is something about it that you believe is possible? That is the perfect place to start.

Nature and the Natural State of Being

The Native American Medicine Wheel could be called the "wheel of life." It shows the natural cycles of life. It uses the things in nature like the change in the seasons to teach how life works. The "East" on the Medicine Wheel represents springtime when there is birth, blooming, and new beginnings.

The I Ching, an ancient Chinese text, states, "Man (and Woman) is as at the height of wisdom when all that he (or she) does is as self-evident as what nature does."

Life has a way that it creates and unfolds things- a "natural state of being." If we step out of our contrived world and tune into the natural way that things work, we can access what we want. Our intention and actions would resonate with the natural state of being, and the things we want would naturally unfold.

It's not that life does not want us to have the things that we want. We have just been going about it in a way that has no place to plug in to the natural state of being. Our culture is no longer in tune with this natural state. In this sense, it is lost.

This is the value of using the Medicine Wheel, meditating, and connecting with nature. These things can teach us how the the natural state of being works, so we can align ourselves with it. We can then resonate with it and unfold the things that we want for ourselves. We can dance with all of creation.

It takes a while to get used to it. It will not feel like it is on our terms. This can be a bit frustrating at first, because we are used to wanting things on our terms.

So next time you want to create something, go observe nature. It can teach you how you can unfold it in conjunction with the natural state of being.

Responsibility- the key to freedom?

You create your life. Everything that you are experiencing in your life now was created by you. The undesirable things in your life are either an outcome of a choice that you made, or an experience or person that you chose to expose yourself to. It could be your choice of a job, career, boss, business, place you live, significant other, friend(s), place to hang out, or limitless other things. Of all the possible things on the planet, you chose to expose yourself to those experiences. And now, for better or for worse, you have what you have.

We often tend to view the undesirable things in our life as things that happened TO us. "There I was minding my own business and wham, my boss unloaded on me. What was I supposed to do?"

The cool thing about taking responsibility for everything in your life is that nine times out of ten, if you created it... you can change it. On the contrary, if it happened TO you- there is not much that you can do to change it. You are at the mercy of other people and outside forces. Taking responsibility for your life empowers you to change it and to create the life that you want- the ultimate freedom.

If you start making different choices today, you can expect your life to be significantly different in about six months. That seems to be about how long it takes for new things to manifest. The choice in front of you is whether or not you choose to take responsibility for the things in your life. That choice opens you up to all the other choices- or not.