It is what it is….

So much of what we think is packaged.  Free running thought is sometimes enjoyable, sometimes frustrating; all in all, it is what it is: “unbridled”. 

While the rippling enthusiasm of a young colt bounding and kicking, sprinting and zig zagging in a summer-lush field is sport to watch, it is only what it is… unbridled.  The colt’s purpose, though it has no knowledge of this, is to develop muscle and reactions that will serve in a contest for a mate or in a flight for survival.  The colt’s joyful actions are taken in service of an — though unconscious — anticipated need for reaction.

We are like that.  We have body, mind, and spirit too.  All of which from time to time have enthusiastic flexing, movement, and joy.  No real reason at the time, but reason enough in design.  The mind needs to be quick, as well the body in times of need.  In times of reaction.  The spirit is sometimes assuaged as well.  It has to have depth and stolid consistency to deal with times of hardship, and to have the resiliancy to withstand the tests then flourish once again in times of joy. 

Packaged thought is disconnected yet necessary.  I have to do this NOW. Whatever that is — groceries, pick up the kids, go skating… whatever it is, that is what it is at the time.  The art of living comes in drawing connections, or is it in managing connections, between one time an the next.  The art of living is in connecting, relating, pulling the experience of the past into the fore when needed, laterally drawing like experiences together when needed…. connecting the packages.  Bridling the unbridled for the purpose of being free.

The discipline of living free.  A paradox.  An oxymoron.  Discipline — free.  Juxtaposed… or not.  Freedom does have a ‘price’ we might have heard.  It does have a cost in action, for sure.  But energy is abounding, so where to put our energy except into actions that free us?  There’s no other reasonable answer.  Put energy into bondage?! Not a good answer.  The packages of thought, the boundaries of the moment are put to service in the well led life.  They are moments to be consumed, as they are because they are what they are.  There is not another moment to supplant the one you are in, so live it and be it and do what it is that moment demands, or wants, or requests, or needs.  That package is the present.  The one you open only now, and now, and now again.  The precious ‘present’ that we are given to live and connect and to find freedom within.

Unbridled, bridled.  It is what it is.

Natural Being

Natural Being

Consciously directed thought is important to this system, because what you put forward into the universe in thought and action will develop and find resonance.  Consciously directed thought is a tool that you are learning to harness and benefit from, but it is not all there is to our state.  There is a deeper state that is not part of conscious thought, and it is most certainly not part of ego.  It is your state of Natural Being that has been alluded to throughout this system.   This state is our natural and most restful and regenerative state and it is in natural resonance with affluence as it is of the generative life-force of the universe.  It is powerful and enjoyable, and you are ready to find this state in your life more often.

If you have ever worked out too hard, you know the debilitating feeling of having sore muscles.  If you have ever watched a marathon race, you have likely seen those terribly fatigued souls who have pushed so very hard for so very long that they are near exhaustion, their legs wobbling beneath them as they cross the finish line.  Everyone knows that they are going to be so sore the next day!  Muscles are made to be flexed and built, but they need rest to do so healthily.  There is a cycle of stressing work then appropriate rest and nutrition before doing it again when building muscle.  This is the cycle athletes use to train and build their bodies.  The amazing thing is that it is no different for our brains, yet in most people the consciousness and particularly the ego part of consciousness is turned up full blast, rallying at full tilt, all the time.  There really is little quality rest for the brain in the lives of many.  Without quality rest in our muscles, there is breakdown.  Is it any different for our brains?  Why do so many not know the simplest ways to rest?  How has the great collective of humanity seemed to lose these important skills?  I honestly don’t know, but I do know that there are simple ways to take appropriate rest that will allow the brain to gain a nourishing respite and thereby grow in a healthy and balanced manner. 

The healthy and balanced way to establish a rested brain is found in the state of Natural Being.  In this state the conscious mind is stilled, and the brain and the Whole Self are able to get true and vitalizing rest.  It takes only moments spent in this precious state to gain potent benefits.

Natural Being is that state where there is no thought.  No thought at all.  It is the presence of simply being and it peaks ever so slightly and ever so gently over the edge of consciousness but goes no further.  This is what is represented by the circle and small ellipse rising from the top of the circle in the Whole Self diagram at the end of chapter four.  The state of simply ‘being’ can happen for a brief moment or for an enjoyable length of time, and the conditions of health and happiness are most affected by this state, as at our source in our natural state of being we are healthy and we are abundantly happy.  The wonderful thing is that everyone can achieve this state enough daily to improve the condition of life; obviously, it is worth learning how. 

Here are a few exercises to help you find this state, and when you get to know how it feels you will find it more often, through your own means.  You will discover that it is amazingly liberating to engage these simple tasks with some frequency; they will help you to immediately and naturally increase health and happiness in your life.  This collection of activities constitutes Action Tool #3: (i) now and then focus on your breath.  Breathe deeply and focus on inhalation and exhalation for only a moment or two when you are waiting for something or someone, or have a spare minute.  That is all.  Focus on breath and let all thought go away.  You will gain precious moments of being; (ii) watch thoughts as an observer.  Let them go.  Find them interesting but do not attach to them.  Remove your ‘attach to’ side of the Velcro equation and let thoughts float in and out of your consciousness; (iii) lean back and look up.  Don’t do this when driving. J  When you have an appropriate moment and you are sitting down, lean slightly back in your chair, pull your shoulders back, breath easily, close your eyes, and look up into your forehead.  You won’t see anything, but you will momentarily stop conscious thought and achieve a positive state.  Do so for a moment or two.  These techniques take only moments, but they are precious moments; (iv) still yourself and feel the energy in your body.  This is an extremely invigorating exercise.   Slow everything down and focus thought first on your hands, then your legs, then your arms, and the core of your body.  Each time you focus, feel the vibration of energy in your being.  When you get this right, you will be amazed by the resonant power flowing through your body; (v) react to and peacefully engage anything at all that you find positive in your present moment.  If someone looks pleasant, pleasantly say hello with a positive intention – if they do not say hello back or notice your efforts it is of no matter as your intention is purely resonant and purely directed.  If you see a beautiful scene before you, notice it and bring it fully into your minds and your state of being.  Take the time to notice, engage, and foster positive in your life; (vi) when negativity comes your way, say “really?” or “is that so?” inside your head.  Do not attach, simply observe.  Be the contented bubble of you in a sea of bubbles. You can act and do what you need to do in all moments, but you do not need to attach to the thoughts and conditions and experiences of those moments. They just are what they are and nothing else.  Learn to see that all experience is only what it is and nothing else – there is nothing additional to anything except what you add to it in reactive thought.  So, don’t react in any way except those ways that benefit your survival and ultimately your affluent state of being; (vii) do not play shave and a haircut with anyone.  Do you know this?  Tum tum ta tum tum… tum tum.  The old shave and a hair cut rhythm is one where the “tum tum ta tum tum” stimulus is put forth by one person, a space of time is achieved, and the other person answers with “tum tum.”  People do this all day with actions and reactions, guarding and maintaining ego.  Have you ever been baited or had your buttons pushed?  Don’t play anymore.  When you are simply being, you won’t want to play and you will be so contented that you will become able to notice the stimulus and then just be.  Very liberating; (viii) notice your thoughts, and if it they are not directed to positive and generative purposes, cease them.  Allow only constructive, positive and generative thought.  Allow the kind of thinking you use to plan and build and realize your desires, and when these thoughts have served their purpose, again cease thinking. 

Lean back in your chair, concentrate on breath….  Enjoy.

Anchor Your Own Abundance

Recall the tuning forks we looked at earlier.  We know that if one is struck and placed near another that has the same frequency, the second will begin to resonate with the first.  Stop the first, and the second will go on resonating.  Through the application of energy, the first tuning fork puts forth a vibration at a particular frequency.  The second fork, in its creation, was built to put forth or receive the same frequency as the first.  We see that the net effect the application of energy has is resonation, and as it is for the tuning forks it is for us.   We resonate with, give energy to, and get energy from the thoughts, conditions, and experiences that share the frequency of our own vibration.  

You get what you focus upon; you get what you are.  You have likely heard the great truth from Proverbs 23:7: “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”   It is of primary importance that we think deliberately in our hearts in order to deliberately achieve that which we desire. The work of deliberately seeking material for and creating specific and detailed thoughts and images that will become central to your state of resonance is step six of this system.  This step is concerned with action and will be accomplished through the second action tool as explained below.

You get what you focus upon; you get what you are.  It is now time to refine and strengthen your resonation with affluence.  Think of affluence as a set of goal posts in a great game of life.  Though the game of life and goal posts as goals, are overused metaphors, they have a brief purpose in this system because the metaphor demonstrates that you have to know where the goal posts are in order to play the game properly and to score the winning goal.  Though life is not a game and affluence is not a shot at the net, the metaphor has merit in the image it creates: you have to determine what affluence is to you and what it looks like in order to reach your goals and realize your desires.  You have put effort into this area already, and it is now time to refine and strengthen the work you have done. 

Ready?  Look at this series of questions and feel the quality answers that resonate with you; find the answers that make practical sense and bring a quality feeling to you.   The questions follow.  What is your vision of health?  What does your vision of wealth look like?  What makes you deeply happy?  These are broad, guiding questions you will use to form your focused resonance images.  The point here is that you are looking for images that resonate within you.  When I see my image of health for instance, I am just finishing a tough hike in the coastal forest and I am smiling, full of energy, and ready to vibrantly take on some quality work later in my day.  It’s a nice image and it feels good to go to that image when I think of health; there is a lot of meaning and feeling associated with a quality image, so let’s get you working on your special images that you will carry with you always.

You understand and believe in the power of resonant energy, and you know why it is important to become resonant and you have chosen to do so.  You have an understanding of consciousness and of the connection between the parts and of the Whole Self.  You are now ready for Action Tool #2: create definite and detailed, consciously directed and intensely focused images of your desired state of affluence and commit them to deep and feeling memory.  The images you are about to create have to be of the deepest and most feeling sort because saying you want affluence and providing a general idea is not enough; it’s too vague and you can only obtain a vague realization from a vague image.  The work is upon you now.  It is time to take up some paper and a pen and write at the top of three blank pages a heading on each: on the first, health; on the second, wealth; and on the third, happiness.  You are about to fill those pages.  Please don’t concentrate on being neat and tidy during this exercise; you are meant to gracefully enjoy the flow of creativity.  You can always do a good copy later if you need to!  J

When you begin, it will be important to create your images in the positive.  That is to say that if you want an image that is concerned with eradicating fear in your life, don’t focus on ‘no fear’ focus upon confidence and well-being or strength.  If you want to eradicate lack, don’t focus on ‘no lack,’ focus instead upon abundance.  The reason for this is that you must focus upon and resonate with what you want, not what you don’t want.  When you begin in a moment, you will be committing three types of information to the page: (i) drawings or doodling, or cuttings of pictures; (ii) writing in the form of image phrases and sentences; and, (iii) splashing and smatterings of single words related to the heading.  Each of these three categories is of course related to your presently desired, optimal state of health, then wealth, then happiness.  Again, the reason for doing this is to create focused, believable mental images with strongly associated feelings that you will carry about and focus upon in your daily internal environment.  These images will help you to create your state of resonance in every moment, and quickly right your state when you stray.  They will help you to liberate and generate energy from the alignment of the Whole Self. They will become the quality images you immediately associate with health and wealth and happiness each time you hear or utter these words.  So, this is pretty important.

Before you begin filling those pages, let us take a moment to look one more time at belief.  This is so critical.  You have to believe your images or you will create false and weak resonance, and your ensuing actions will not be of the necessary quality to attain your desires.  You must believe your images, but what does that mean to this exercise?  Well, in a practical sense it will not do to create an image of your health wherein you are the fastest person on earth as well as a professional power-lifter and champion jockey all in one; it will not do to imagine that next week you will be the richest person on earth; and it will not do to imagine that you will laugh and giggle and live in a constant state of hysterical delirium.  No, your images must be first and foremost believable.  Stretch to the outer edge of your current state of belief, but go no further.  As you begin to feel the power of this system, as likely you have already, you will be able to grow your images as it feels appropriate; you will be able to expand your definitions of health, wealth, and happiness as you develop greater belief in your abilities and your growth.  Take on that growth when you feel it authentically coming from within you, but for now ask yourself and answer: “What does my really wonderful state of increasing affluence look, sound, feel, taste, and smell like in the next six months?”  You will absolutely be able to come back to this exercise, and you will do so fluidly and frequently well before six months is over.  You can see, though, that a solid start with believable material is vital.  Success begets success, so start with a believable stretch.  You need not wonder how you will accomplish and obtain the conditions and experiences you image, but the answers are in the fact that (i) you will deeply resonate with your images thus creating the immediate benefits associated with powerful resonation, as outlined previously; (ii) in the next chapters you will establish important direction and learn to take effective action daily thus choreographing events that will open doors and smooth paths for you to realize these images; (iii) you will learn and engage further action tools to complement and develop what you have already learned; and, (iv) you will come upon serendipitous happenings, excellent intuition, energy to make change, positive states of motion, and much more that is excellent and well.  This is just the way it is!

There is no time like the present… in fact there is no other time than the present… so, please begin.  Find a quiet place, put on some soothing music, pour a cup of tea, calm down and cool out into those powerful Alpha waves… enjoy doodling, phrasing, and splashing words upon your pages.  When you are done in an hour or in a few days, use the pictures, images, and words you have laid down to create a solid, grounded image or series of images in your mind.  You will know that you have completed this action well when you are able to hear or say each of the words health, wealth, and happiness and have an immediately associated image or image set occur strongly in your mind – one that simultaneously initiates deeply resonant feelings of satisfaction, and rightness.   Spend the time you need to fully complete this action step.  Focus on affluence, as you get what you focus upon; you get what you are.  Your belief in and work with these understandings is directly related to the success you will have positively influencing affluence in your life….

Alignment… That’s what Synergy is all about!

Aligning the Whole Self – Liberating Life-force

A lively spirit, a playful spirit, an old soul, a spritely spirit, a spark in his eyes, her powerful presence, a force to be reckoned with….  We have many ways of recognizing the life-force in us and others.  A playful puppy, a happy child, and a wonderfully meaningful experience each teach us of the generative and connective life-force we have within.  Our life-force is our aliveness.  Life-force is the twinkle of energy behind the eyes, the spark that we see in some and not so much in others.  This most primary form of energy that is the breath of life in all things living is within us, connects us to one another, and connects us to the Universal Consciousness.

Developing and allowing our life-force to flow fully and naturally is supremely wonderful and brings richness and power to our lives.  The process of allowing it to grow and flow within us to maximum capacity is purely a positive one.  Our life-force will grow and flow more freely the more we are either quiet in our conscious mind or are directing thought to positive growth.  Life-force is allowed to flow unobstructed in a vessel that is resonating with positive vibration.  This unrestrictive flow is also related to our state of Natural Being that will be discussed later, where consciousness is given the back seat and Being is given primary focus.  Consider for the sake of increasing this wonderful force, that of thought and emotion, love is the greatest feeling you can generate for increasing life-force followed by gratitude and kindness.  Happy thoughts and feelings, a purposeful life, right action and a healthy body all contribute to the creative development of life-force, and once again the power of conscious thought is inextricably linked to this critical component of our Whole Self.

Helping the Body be all it can Be

You may have heard the saying that disease is really “dis-ease”.  Our bodies sure have to put up with a lot… if our conscious and subconscious are not directed properly.

  Have a read and learn about helping the body through aligning your WHOLE SELF. Read the rest of this entry »

The control of conscious thought

It just makes sense… if you have four horses you want to pull your wagon, they have to run in the SAME direction to be effective.  So why is it that so many of us have our conscious and unconscious minds, our bodies, and our life force bridled into an an antagonistic dance!?  THAT just doesn’t make sense.  Learn how to get synergy from your systems, right here! Read the rest of this entry »

Energy Flows… so what do you do about it?

Energy, by its nature, flows.  Moving from one state to another, one place to another etc.  So if energy is always present and moving, what does that mean to you?

Individually, it is all about how you cultivate and use your energy.  Just like a garden.  Furrow the fields, tend to the plants, demonstrate care, provide effort to the well being, and you will likely yield positive results.  A person is just like a garden.  You don’t get a positive yeild in a garden without thought, direction, and effort.  As a person, you must be your own tender of energy.  You must use the power of thought, direction, and effort, and you can yield your own positive results.

What about groups?   Groups have energy, and you can try to stop it, forceably redirect it, or find a way to help steer, or influence to the positive, the inevitable flow of energy.  Energy flows in groups and exists.  And because energy does not like to be stifled, many groups who feel stifled tend to find negative outlets for their energy — yeilding poor, or negative results.  Groups need to have collective thoughts such as mission or vision, as well as the direction of purpose, and they need to have avenues to exert effort — to work. 

Energy flows.  You can try and stop it or your can find ways of cultivating it to the positive.

Have a look at these Aikido videos.  Or, find out a little more about this fascinating martial art that focuses on the flow of energy.  Aikido.com is a nice place to start.  A discipline to be respected, Aikido, has a great deal to teach.

Gratefully Appreciate; Gratefully Allow

The Synergy in Life System — Section 21

This next section reminds me of the dynamic tension needed to play a sport well or to do well playing an instrument, or to excell in the arena of academia, or being an excellent craftsperson… etc.  The dynamic tension I speak of is that needed concentration on the task at hand — that complete being in the moment — coupled with a gentle, positive mindset.  Too much mental focus, or ‘forcing’ will not allow the flow needed to excell.  To flow… you must flow. 

Gratefully appreciating and allowing is a mental state.  A mental state that is concentrated, dynamic, and pleasantly positive.  A dynamic balance.  Is there a better state of mind?!

Gratefully Appreciate; Gratefully Allow

Gratefully appreciate and gratefully allow affluence to be your natural state.  Gratefully appreciate what you have now and gratefully allow yourself the correct belief that you are meant to express life fully and with joy, meant to enjoy abundant affluence.  Be grateful for and nourish the health you have now.  Give fuel to that health by noticing it, exploring it, appreciating it and expanding upon it.  Be grateful for and nourish the wealth you do have.  Give fuel to that wealth by noticing it, exploring it, appreciating it and expanding upon it.  Be grateful for and nourish the happiness you do have.  Give fuel to that happiness by noticing it, exploring it, appreciating it and expanding upon it.  Gratefully allow affluence to abundantly increase in your life, as it is meant to.

Gratefully focus upon what you desire with such clarity and enthusiasm that you leave no room for other thoughts and actions.  Focus your mind upon affluence.  Believe in affluence, give thought to affluence, and feel it within you, for this authentic triad of belief, directed thought, and feeling is the first experience you will have with a concept that will be given more attention later called Inner Management. For now, however, and in logical progression, Step three is to gratefully believe in the rightness of your desire for affluence with such force of thought, intensity and pervading feeling that there is no room left within you to hold contrary thoughts or to take contrary actions.  Give everything to your positive development, save nothing for the negative.  Affluence was intended for you upon your inception, and now you must prepare to meet it at the source.  Pursue your natural expression, resonate with your natural expression, and gratefully appreciate, gratefully allow.

Connections and High Performance

You know about systems of government, circulatory systems, systems of thought, the educational system….  On and on it goes.

When someone or some group maximizes the potential of one or many systems in concert to create amazing results, they are synergizing their systems for high performance.

The Synergy in Life System and the central concepts of GreenSeed Consulting have come to be as a result of my experience, training, observation, and thought in several diverse areas. These are: systems of team play used in sport; systems of thought from both psychology and philosophy; systems of individual human performance from the study of physiology; systems of education; physical and mental systems from martial arts… and systems of management and leadership. 

It was the study of systems of management that started me looking closely at the profound connections within and between systems.  I knew from experience that all systems have aims or objectives and that creating synergy within and between systems is where high performance is born.  When you look at it in a general sense, everyone knows this but just might not use the same vocabulary to explain high performance.  For me, it was when I started to study the area of Systems Thinking — interestingly, it has roots in electrical engineering — that the power of finding and creating connections within and between systems began to establish as at first a thought and now as a FACT in my mind.

For example, there are connections between systems of play in sport and the systems of physiological training used with the athletes on a team; they also require systems of thought that are geared to performance… and this requires a vision or a system of philosophy.  That same team requires training and learning derived from and brought forth through systems of education…. On it goes. It’s all connected.

How about your group or team?  Are there connections within and between systems?  How about you?  Do you have a system of thought that creates a state of high performance? 

What lays at the base of all the systems that exist in our world?  What is the connection that underlies all things?  Energy.  That is a statement of scientific fact.  Energy is our one substance.  Create a philosophy or psychology that is hopeful and has an aim, and you will create a resonant physiology of health — based on your use of and direction of energy.  Create a system of education that is natural, flowing, and in concert with psychology, physiology, social systems tendencies etc. and you will have a recipe for potential high performance because of the use of and direction of energy.  Everything is connected in energy, through aims and objectives, and most importantly through our ability to synergize individual and corporate systems to meet those aims and objectives.  That’s high performance!  This is fascinating.

Want to read more?  click here.

How to live life as a work of art…

FLOW…

Csikszentmihalyi is one of my favorite writers.  Hardest name in the world to spell and definitely defies pronunciation… but a very engaging writer and thinker.  I have grabbed some content from another site and posted it below.  If you like what you read click on the link I put above — the word FLOW.  Click it and you will go to the site from where this content was posted.  Or… type in < flow csi > in Google and there are over 185 000 hits to look at.  Some video, some books that he has written.  I recommend the book titled FLOW.  Fantastic!!  Much of what you will read in my book posted on this site is related to Csik’s work.  Read the rest of this entry »

Consider this…

The Institute for Global Ethics has conducted research around the world attempting to find out if there are a CORE set of values common to all people.  Their findings are … there are.  If this is true — and when you have visited their site and read their research, there is no reason to think otherwise — then this knowledge represents a powerful knowing.  It points to a similarity amongst all good people.  If we all have a similar basis for our values, then our understanding of one another can be placed upon a stable foundation — one that we can see and understand in one another.

And while this similarity holds for all people across the globe, it also holds for people near you.  And knowing this gives you a powerful tool for creating positive change and making positive influence.  Do you want to know what they are…?

There’s compassion, honesty, fairness, responsibility, and respect.  All cultures value these regardless of creed or color or religious background.  So, if your actions and the actions of groups you work with are focussed upon using these core values in reaching your goals, aims, and objectives then anything you attempt to accomplish will be guided by natural ‘laws’ of being human.  That’s powerful!  Agree to keep these words central to your team, your group, your family and you are agreeing to synergize your energy through positive, natural, and globally acceptable actions that are based upon core values to being human.  This is truly profound. 

New book coming out soon… Look for it!  This one is focussed on the communication patterns and synergy of groups.  THANK YOU to everyone who has purchased The Synergy in Life System.  The PDF’s are rolling out hot.  Its great to serve!

Douglas