The Ideal Self

Who are we? What are we here to do? Why were we put here?

These are questions that I'm sure we have all wondered, I know I have. I especially have reflected on these things when I have come up against conflict or a state of frustration in my life. It seems like at any point in my life when things are not going the way I would like them to, that's when the previous questions start to appear. However, my questions are a little more childish and show up in the form of, "why me?" or "why is life so unfair?"

As I have come to believe, life is not so bleak. Life is good. Albert Einstein said "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." For the most part, I don't really buy into absolutes and black and white ways of being. However, the quote by Einstein really is one of the keys to the kingdom. It leaves no room for error. It takes away the guess work in the Art of Life. And really isn't it the guess work, the shoulda-coulda-woulda that causes us the most pain and distress in our lives. I know for myself that I burn alot of energy being upset and disgruntled in regards to how I wish things were different. I have found that in the long run, seemingly tragic failures are really installments toward true success. I can choose to be imprisoned by the iron bars of a disgruntled state of mind, or I can choose to try and see my current circumstances for what they really are. Merely my current circumstances....nothing more.

If we can begin to see seemingly good and seemingly bad as merely current circumstances that are only temporary, we have shifted our state of being and the Ideal Self will being to emerge. There are religious and philosophical traditions that suggest if we analyze where we are in this exact moment, there is nothing that we are truly lacking. And if we really think about it, isn't life ultimately lives only in the exact moment? I've spent time regretful of the past, reliving painful experiences thousands of times over, and fearful of the future, prophesizing terrible events. As a result, life becomes a living hell. Who wants to live in hell?

To change from a way of being that no longer serves us to the Ideal Self is a huge shift in being, but only takes subtle shifts in thinking and can begin right now. An easy first step is to begin to be grateful for the current things in your life. Gratitude is a way of being that opens the door for more situations to be grateful for. Gratitude is a choice, and most of us have spent so much of our lives focusing on what is lacking and what we consider to be unfair that we have wired our brains to default to that mindset. It is easier and requires not effort for our brains to go there. We don't even have to think about it, our brains just automatically go there. Its familiar and the brain likes familiar. Being grateful requires more thought then not being grateful. Its like exercising, it make require some effort at first, but if we continue to do it will become a more integrated part of who we are. After all, when we first started, being ungrateful took more effort then being grateful. We just continued to do it and began to develop the belief that life would only hand out more reasons to be ungrateful then to be grateful.

As we begin to choose to be more grateful and observe in our lives more things and circumstances to be grateful for, our Ideal Self will begin to solidify and grow stronger. This is where we begin to become aware of the path to our full potential. We can begin to believe in power of possibility. The power of possibility is enormous. If we can shift our thinking from absolutes to possibility, we have opened a door for magic to come into our lives and circumstances begin to appear that are in line with our divine potential. And really our divine potential is what we are here to discover and ultimately reach.

Divine potential can be achieved by the Ideal Self, and the Ideal Self is who we really are underneath all the layers that we have put on while we have lived and explored the Earth plane. If we can begin to question what we have been taught is truth and if we can start to see possibility where we used to see only absolute then the journey has begun.

Keeping your head in the clouds.

Many of us have lofty aspirations and dreams. Growing up we want to be all sorts of things. Professional athletes, firemen, astronauts, ect. Some people are blessed enough to have the ambition, desire and/or a support group around them and they eventually achieve their dreams and go on to be trail blazers in their field and live happy, successful lives.

There are also those who get to a place where they give up on pursuing the things they want to do in life. This can be from an authoritative figure telling them to "get real" and try to be more practical. Others meet with some form of failure and immediately give up. There are still others that just have no idea what they want to be when they grow up.

I was personally of the mindset that there was no way to make a decent living and enjoy the work I was doing. I believed that I would either be happy and poor or be wealthy and miserable. I have found this last sentence to defy the laws of the universe. One cannot be miserable and truly wealthy and there is no way for a person to be truly happy and remain unwealthy.

If we take the phrase "getting real" literally, then the true form of reality would be within ourselves as that is where our subjective reality is generated. I believe that the needs and desires that we possess are God-given and therefore the spirit of our creator wanting to express itself. If we truly listen to it and tap into that expression, then there is no way that we cannot succeed at whatever it is that spirit calls us to do.

I have found that when we give up on these dreams and desires, then part of us dies on the inside and we become like the walking dead. Doing this that we don't want to do, living a life that we really don't want to live and constantly putting our happiness in tomorrow or next year or some distant date that never comes. When we tap into our inner being, everything sparks with aliveness. There is magic in all that we do and coincidences are just par for the course.

It doesn't matter at what age or time we gave up on our dreams and started living a life that we didn't want to live, we can always tap back into that side of ourselves. It is always there because it is who we are in the purest form. It is our spiritual selves and on the level of spirit, there are not limits and everything is possible. If we can move from a world of black and white to a world of possibility, then we have tapped into spirit and begun the journey.

Once we make the conscious (or unconscious) decision to walk with spirit, then life takes on a whole new meaning. We go from just killing time to living life. The joy of being in the moment far outweighs some lackluster promise that tomorrow will break. We become who we are and can dream into physical reality anything that we can clearly focus our attention on. In this place it is only appropriate to keep your head in the clouds as there is where we can imagine with the most clarity. This, I believe, is what the great master said when he spoke "And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." With the imagination of a child we can create a kingdom of heaven here and now.

First Things First

This is my first blog...ever. I've heard about these things and even read one or two of them, but never pictured myself writing one. Well, times have changed. Here I am, writing my first blog. I plan to update it as much as possible and my intent is offer insight, inspiration and empowerment to my readers.

This is a time of great change for myself. One month ago, I quit a very well paying and potential filled career at an insurance company. I had just been promoted, I had enlisted the help of a mentor to position myself for further advancement and on paper, all was well. However, I was not happy. It was nothing to do with the company, my superiors, or my co-workers. In fact, I loved them all. I just disliked (this word is a drastic understatement) being at work. I would wake up in the morning and try to think of reasons not to go in. My wife stated that I was no longer the person she had married, that I was distant and very much disconnected. I spent 8 hours at work wishing I was somewhere else, 8 hours outside of work dreading the thought of going back into work and then 8 hours sleeping.

I read a book call 'Riding for the Brand' by Jim Whit. Ironically, it was given to me and my co-workers by management in an effort to have us find more purpose in what we were doing and put passion and gusto into our work. Some people liked the book and others could not get past the surface storyline in which the underlying, true message of the book is presented. I was changed by the book. It was the right book at the right time and something clicked in my head. This book paired with my unhappiness and my wife's disenchantment with our situation as a couple lead me to the decision. I needed to quit my job and find what my passion and purpose was.

This was a big decision, but looking back, its a wonder I did not make it sooner.

I walked in on a Friday and told my boss how grateful I was for the opportunity they had given me to work there, but that it was time for me to leave.

I had no safety net or nest egg or back-up plan. On the day I put in my two weeks, I honestly didn't know what to pursue. I did know, however, that I was doing the right thing. I had taken the first step in faith and the rest would be provided by the Universe and would appear as needed.

My rational mind was ablaze with fear, uncertainty and was already telling me how I would end up homeless and starving as a result of this decision. My intuitive/spiritual mind was ablaze with the possibilities and the excitement of the journey that lay ahead of me. Its quite an emotion to experience the previously mentioned all at once.

The signs all pointed toward a career in coaching. I had previously explored this territory before when I was in graduate school for psychology. At the time, I had ruled it out but it was now a new and exciting opportunity. I found out that the bills still come and coaching school requires a certain amount of capital, but the strange thing is that all my needs have been provided for. Everything as come to me with ease and least resistance and I can see the Universe paving the way. As I trust more, more is revealed. As more is revealed, my fear begins to dissipate.

Nothing real can be threatened and nothing unreal exists.