CHOICE

Some us find it easier to define Life in steps, phases, periods, but Life is this continuum thing. We are not even sure how continuum it is. Are we just a product of the Now or are we made of Eternity?

Whatever it is your belief, in the physical life what matters in the end are your choices. Starting from the end, you can choose to believe in an afterlife or death as a dead end. Then, as age settles in our mind and body, we get away from the choices, less becomes the more, exactly the opposite of when we're young and frenetic, more, more, more and more to choose.

In this self growing process, at first we tend to believe that opportunities choose us. There is a right moment (or wrong), we're either lucky or unlucky, so despite our super active mind we are quite passive about the turns we choose to take. We keep growing these ideas and then comes this moment that we feel as if we have woken up and we realize that the choices we make define who we are. Wow! So we should think a bit more before choosing... but then! comes another moment when we realize that there's no randomness into choosing. There is a mindset in ourselves that decides in what to believe, and all our choices will be directed by that: the unconscious  + the conscious mind.

What's that? Unconscious mind?
Well, it was Sigmund Freud who introduced this concept of the mind being a reservoir of feelings, thoughts, urges, and memories that we're not fully aware, but that have power over who we are.
So if we are afraid of something but refuse to admit it, we will keep our distance from it, not really understanding why. And as silly as it sounds, we can be afraid of absurd things, like, happiness. We can be afraid of being happy!

How can we control our mind?
We can't control it 100%, but we can CHOOSE how to speak with ourselves and of course, with others. And just that tiny little consciousness awareness of our inner monologue can give us power to redirect our Life.

Try it...
- make the effort of expressing possibility (there is away to achieve what you want if you really believe in it, fully! no excuses);
- Use power words that are active, not passive (For example, a surfer could say, "my biggest problem is being afraid of bigger waves", but instead he should say to himself, "my biggest challenge is to learn how to duck dive better");
- Speak in questions. Statements leave you no option. Again, for example, you can state that "these waves are too big for me...", but try changing it into a question, "how can I go over the breaking point of the waves?"

Lastly... Be inspired!


The man & the sea from Andrew Kaineder on Vimeo.

Attention please...

... And we think we are paying attention. Well we are, but maybe not to things or thoughts that could be of good use to us. We probably are paying attention towards the wrong direction. But we think we own the will to decide where our focus should be, and we are so wrong on that...

Our will takes us to where our mind has its attention. If you keep focusing on your wrongs and faults, your will will be to surpass them, but your horizon will always be settling on those same problems. Unless something disrupts our chain of thought we are more likely to look at things according to the the same known perspective, over and over... 

So if our will is to feel free, we immediately ask of what, free of what? And of course we name what we think it imprison us and that's where our attention will rest, on the thing we are scared of, on the thing we want to change, on what hurts us.

To stop any process and really open ourselves to change, growth and expansion we need to change our attention. Why do we grow the way we do when in Life we are sweetly presented with children? They grab our attention! Not our will or wishes. They grab our attention.

Attention, pure contemplative practice.

Simone Weil, philosopher in the 1920-30s spoke to us about the importance of having a mind that embraces grace and takes the time to incorporate it in our thoughts and actions

"We have to try to cure our faults by attention and not by will. (...) Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love. Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer."

Most things in our life are imagined by us. Reality is not that well known to the majority of us, so we are too easily deceived by what we imagine it's the truth to everyone else. No one will see the world the same way you do. The closest thing we can share is empathy.

Reality is that almost unprovable thing, and even in laboratoires, it's usually proven by its contrary. And we don't live in a laboratory, we live in homes, and friends arms, and work desks, we live attached to whatever has shown to give us meaning about who we are.

"Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be attained only by someone who is detached."

But we need roots, and attachment... we need meaning and belonging, "(...) for when two beings who are not friends are near each other there is no meeting, and when friends are far apart there is no separation."

Just remember that where you focus your attention that will be where you are lead.

Are you High on Hope?

There's a Plan b somewhere in our head, right? We'll figure it out, there's gotta be a way, a sense to why we spend our entire life searching for the next thing, the next day, the next exit or opportunity.

... we are dreamers, we are all in our essence dreamers, but school, work, community either helps our dreams to become our mirrors or shuts it all down with a sign of dead end street...

Love will save the day! (and we hope again)

Well, one thing we know, if there's nothing we believe in, nothing that can connect us to being alive, what's left of any living inside us will drain away.

So bitch away, stay blind to what was said you should be, and instead follow that groove that drives you with a smile in your face, head banging in rhythmic aliveness...

"Choose Life..." and make it an interesting story, a story with value and that special je ne sais quoi.
But for that you need to find the reason to do it.

We are all:

It's not easy at all to realize why you are doing it, but it's called emotional/mental hygiene.
So while you're getting dirty, make sure you've got a place to shower.
And keep the "rave" going.


High On Hope - feature doc trailer from Piers Sanderson on Vimeo.