Month: May 2010

Grab It and Let It Flow – The Affirmation Spot for Monday May 31, 2010

This afternoon I’m cruising at 36,000 feet above the broad, beautiful, blue Pacific. We’re about halfway between California and Hawaii. I’ve been listening some beautiful music Stephen Halpern and Deuter and rereading some of Dr. Wayne W. Dyer’s outstanding book – Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao.

This extended moment in time is a welcome respite from the hustle and bustle of deadlines and projects that have consumed my days in recent months.

The feeling of peace combined with the relaxing music Dr. Dyer’s skilled retelling of the Tao have taken me to a very reflective place and I thought I’d share.

I am a huge believer in two principles that some might see as contradictory. The first, beautifully articulated by Dr. Dyer, the concept of being with the flow os life and letting life come to you in its unerring perfection. The other is concept that with rightly directed thoughts and action we can achieve and accomplish amazing things.

The question immediately arises, “How do I let go and and go for it at the same time?” My answer is that is one of life’s paradoxes that we strive to achieve and yet the achievement seems empty unless we are connected to the timeless flow of life that underlies it all.

A motivated person may find himself or herself exerting energy swimming against life’s current. This is the ambitious, competitive aspect of who we are and there are circumstances when that approach is effective. The danger is that we see that method as the only way to achieve and miss the fact the sage achieves the same thing by remaining downstream. The sage allows the river to flow to him or her and simply dips a bucket into the river to capture what the motivated person swam upstream to obtain.

Is one better or more advanced than the other? Well, one certainly consumes less energy than the other, but both serve a purpose in our world. A world of sages would not have bridges. A world of bridge builders would miss the true essence that underlies it all.

The answer lies in finding balance between your upstream swimming bridge builder side and your let the river come to you sage side. If you lean more towards one than the other, try to build the weaker side and find a balance.

Before you know it we’ll have a world full of conscious, attuned bridge builders acting in the world and seeing beyond it.

Follow your bliss. Experience your bliss. Become your bliss.

Ray

Ray Davis is the founder of The Affirmation Spot and an advocate for the potential of the human race.  He’s the author of the breakthrough novel Anunnaki Awakening: Revelation – order your signed copy today at AATrilogy.com

anunnaki_cover_full_colorAnunnaki Awakening: Revelation is turning heads and opening minds. Humanity’s past is checkered, secret, and dangerous.

White House Correspondent Maria Love is on to the story of her life and with the help of an Anunnaki leaders seeks to unravel and reveal history’s biggest conspiracy. The Awakening has begun!

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The Power of L.O.S.S. – The Affirmation Spot for Sunday May 23, 2010

Today’s Affirmation:
I accept my losses and learn from them! Defeat is simply opportunity disguised as setback.

head_in_handsMany people see losing or a loss as a very negative thing. Like anything else, losing is all in how you look at it. A well-studied loss can be every bit as valuable in our journey as a victory. I’m not saying that losing is more fun than winning or that winning isn’t valuable. Clearly, we all want to win.

The truth is that most winners had to experience losing before they ever succeeded. So what if you chose to look at your losses in a slightly different light?  A loss might be seen as Lessons and Obstacles on your way to Stunning Successes.
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  • L – Lessons: Losing nearly always provides some lessons and some clues on how to improve. If you pay attention to the things that contributed to the loss, you can apply those lessons to future situations. Given time, you find the winning combination.
  • O – Obstacles – Losses are clearly obstacles. After all, your goal was to win or succeed. However, an obstacle might challenge you to improve or increase your determination to succeed. Used as mental and emotional leverage, a good obstacle can propel you to future victories.
  • S – Stunning – Losing can get you down and make you feel unworthy. In that dark moment of loss, remember to see what a stunning miracle you are. You are a diamond in the rough slowly being polished into something very special.
  • S – Successes – Success is that moment of break through when the journey of loss has been transformed into victory. The lessons, obstacles, and seeing how stunning you are kept you on track to enjoy the sweet taste of success.

So you see a loss is never loss. It’s an opportunity, an invitation to a journey of self-discovery, stretching yourself, and new achievement.

Stay inspired!

Ray

Inter-Being – The Affirmation Spot for Saturday May 15, 2010

Thich Nhat Hanh was nominated for the 1968 Nobel Peace Prize by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He did not win the Nobel, but it was a great honor nonetheless.  He was banished from his home country Vietnam during the Vietnam War. He led a group of Buddhist monks who were actively seeking peace in their country which invited the disdain of both sides.

“Thay” (teacher), as he is known by his followers, founded a retreat called Plum Village in France. Vietnam’s loss has been the West’s gain. For the past 35 years, Thich Nhat Hanh has taught, written, and spoken on his brand of “Engaged Buddhism” in Europe, the U.S., and around the world.

I first became aware of his work about 20 years ago when I picked up a book titled “Peace is Every Step”. Since I have read many of his other books. One of my favorite passages from any of his books – in fact one my favorite things I’ve ever read – is his brief essay on Inter-being.

Today I’d like to share this beautiful and powerful insight with all of you. I hope it transforms the way you think about the interconnectedness of the people and things around you.

Inter-being

If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are. “Interbeing” is a word that is not in the dictionary yet, but if we combine the prefix “inter-” with the verb “to be,” we ha vea new verb, inter-be. Without a cloud and the sheet of paper inter-are.

If we look into this sheet of paper even more deeply, we can see the sunshine in it. If the sunshine is not there, the forest cannot grow. In fact, nothing can grow. Even we cannot grow without sunshine. And so, we know that the sunshine is also in this sheet of paper. The paper and the sunshine inter-are. And if we continue to look, we can see the logger who cut the tree and brought it to the mill to be transformed into paper. And wesee the wheat. We now the logger cannot exist without his daily bread, and therefore the wheat that became his bread is also in this sheet of paper. And the logger’s father and mother are in it too. When we look in this way, we see that without all of these things, this sheet of paper cannot exist.

Looking even more deeply, we can see we are in it too. This is not difficult to see, because when we look at a sheet of paper, the sheet of paper is part of our perception. Your mind is in here and mine is also. So we can say that everything is in here with this sheet of paper. You cannot point out one thing that is not here-time, space, the earth, the rain, the minerals in the soil, the sunshine, the cloud, the river, the heat. Everything co-exists with this sheet of paper. That is why I think the word inter-be should be in the dictionary. “To be” is to inter-be. You cannot just be by yourself alone. You have to inter-be with every other thing. This sheet of paper is, because everything else is.

Suppose we try to return one of the elements to its source. Suppose we return the sunshine to the sun. Do you think that this sheet of paper will be possible? No, without sunshine nothing can be. And if we return the logger to his mother, then we have no sheet of paper either. The fact is that this sheet of paper is made up only of “non-paper elements.” And if we return these non-paper elements to their sources, then there can be no paper at all. Without “non-paper elements,” like mind, logger, sunshine and so on, there will be no paper. As thin as this sheet of paper is, it contains everything in the universe in it.

Ray

Ray Davis is the founder of The Affirmation Spot and an advocate for the potential of the human race.  He’s the author of the breakthrough novel Anunnaki Awakening: Revelation – order your signed copy today at AATrilogy.com

anunnaki_cover_full_colorAnunnaki Awakening: Revelation is turning heads and opening minds. Humanity’s past is checkered, secret, and dangerous.

White House Correspondent Maria Love is on to the story of her life and with the help of an Anunnaki leaders seeks to unravel and reveal history’s biggest conspiracy. The Awakening has begun!

Getting Out of the Gotta Zone – The Affirmation Spot for Thursday May 13, 2010

Today’s Affirmation:

My life is built on choices not chances. Today I choose the life of my dreams and I live it now.

How often do we say it or hear others say it: “I’ve gotta do this or I’ve gotta do that.” It seems our society is obsessed with “gottas.”  We stress ourselves over all the things we’ve gotta get done. What we have forgotten is that most of the things we’ve gotta do relate to choices we’ve made. Through time, we have convinced ourselves that theses gottas are necessities imposed upon us by others.

We seem to thrive on stress and worry. When one worry is resolved we seem to immediately start searching for the next thing to worry about like the addict seeking his next high. There is something within us that causes us to feel guilt if we aren’t doing SOMETHING.

Some might argue we gotta pay taxes, or conform to the law of gravity, or die. There are things that might be called the rules of life that we cannot get around.  Why enslave ourselves by applying “gotta” to them?  Most things we “gotta” do amount to no more than choices we’ve made related to who we are or who we think we are or who we think we’re supposed to be.

When you hear yourself saying “gotta” in any circumstance, ask the question, “Why must I do this? The “because” phrase that follows will tell who or what has conditioned you to think you “gotta” do that.  “Because my mom wants me to.” “Because what would my wife think.” “Because God says so.” “Because I need it to be happy.”  Your “because phrase” will also tell you what needs to be healed or let go of or faced to remove that “gotta” from your life.

If your “because” phrase is just old programming or isn’t really something you value, then you know you are dealing with a gotta that was once forced upon you from the outside, but now can be released.

Most of our gottas are really choices disguised as gottas.  If so, then it really isn’t a gotta imposed by the universe, but rather value judgments we have made or allowed to be made for us.

We have power over choices whereas a true gotta is dictated to us.  Thinking about things this way is very freeing.  Realizing that most our gottas really aren’t and taking responsibility for making the choices we want in our life is the first step towards getting out of The Gotta Zone.

Wishing you a peaceful and positive Thursday….

Ray

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Mondays of Love – The Affirmation Spot for Monday May 10, 2010

In our five-day work week world, Mondays have a very bad reputation. It’s the day many of us have to leave the love, support, and fun of home life and march back out into the big world. This phenomenon has real health effects. Monday morning has been shown in studies to create a 20% spike in heart attacks, as compared to the rest of the week.

There is nothing different in the water, the air, or our food on Monday. There is, however, a huge difference in the way we think about Monday morning. Stressful thoughts lead to stressful biology. We’ve even developed a whole cultural mindset about Mondays. Listen to the TV or the radio and you’ll here phrases like “back to the grind.”

Monday is one-seventh of your life. Why would you spend the other six dreading it and all day on Monday hating it? Many people do. I have in the past. This something I have really tried to work on in myself.

It’s not Mondays that we hate. It’s the stress of doing things we don’t love. It’s the belief that following our bliss cannot pay the bills. Instead, we conclude, we must do jobs that stress us out and fail to fulfill us.

Join me today in honoring Monday as a significant part of your life. Let’s all pledge to begin taking steps to do the things we love instead of things we have to do. I’m not saying it’s easy. I’m just saying let’s remember we have a choice.

By changing our thoughts about Monday and making changes in what we get to do on Monday, we can truly restore this important day back to our lives.

There is a fantastic song from the musical Rent called “Seasons of Love”. It’s a great pick-me-up on this Monday and I hope it reminds you that every moment – even Monday moments – are important.

Stay inspired this Monday and always!

Ray