“Do you suppose there is any rhyme or reason to any of this?” Dweedle-Ant posed.

“He He He! Of course, Mant! Of course! Just take a look at that cute little heiny and tell me that ain’t no reason. That’s a reason!” bellowed and guffawed Sext-Ant.

“Sure, if all that matters to you is thorax and antennae, Perv!” stated Iman-Ant. “Of course there is a point to it all, Dweedle-Ant.”

“Each and every one of us is a piece of a larger whole. The whole is the colony. While a colony can continue without us, it is no longer the same colony. The whole keeps changing, and yet, it depends upon us for its own existence. It is the nature of Life. Before the flower came the bud, before the bud came the stem, before the stem-the roots, before the roots-the seed, and after all is said and done, all that was the flower is returned to multiple seeds. These seeds varying in the sum totality of the experiences in the journey of the flower’s life.”

“So, you see, we don’t know and experience the future now. We pour ourselves into the now, knowing that a future self that is the sum of everything before (self-included), and aspires to even greater, will have more of the answers than we have now,” finished Iman-Ant.

Sext-Ant yawns and exhales, “Well you mucks can do whatever you want, or believe whatever you want. Me? I’m just going for more T & A, baby, T & A!” And sauntered off with a howl that dwindled to a chuckle.

Wow! They’re not much different than us, eh?

Recently asked what I liked about someone’s personality, other than things that are useful to me, I found myself coming up against a rock and a hard place. The very act of liking anything and anyone brings a sense of joy and wonder to a thirsting soul seeking satisfaction. Disliking does quite the opposite. How does a question such as this get answered with any level of honesty?

I read once on a list of Life Priorities once where the top item stated: “Choose the right partner. This one choice alone will determine 95% of your success and happiness.” I cannot emphasize enough how truthful and relevant such a statement is, in spite of all our romantic leanings, and desires to make-things-work.

Toxic workplaces have higher levels of absenteeism, and higher levels of mental health claims. Do we expect we would fare any better in a relationship that is proving toxic? So the question now causes me to turn to who would inquire about what I like about them, besides what is useful, and wonder: Why would you want to hear the answer ‘Nothing’?

Don’t get me wrong, we all have mediocre qualities we all could do-with or do-without and we’d barely notice. But that’s a big difference than the intent behind the question. In a personal and intimate relationship, the values, behaviours, traits, characteristics, and so forth, are either compatible and healthy, or they are not. Attraction happens based upon these things exhibited during a courtship. Over time, the real everyday behaviours, traits, and characteristics show up.

In every relationship between two partners, an agreement is formed in principle that there will be a common ground for respecting each other. How this looks in action often leaves parties struggling to feel that they are being respected 100% of the time. As well, none of us is ever perfect as we keep growing and changing.

It’s a give-and-take, and an ebb-and-flow, as it is with life. The better we are at following the give-and-take, whether it represents a short-term or long-term commitment, the better success the individuals will have, and therefore the better success the union has as a couple.

What do I like about anyone that is not useful? When I like, liking is useful. It does things inside me, like when you smile. Like when you whisper in my ear. Like when you giggle when you’re being silly. Or like when you’re laughing heartily at my jokes. Liking someone is useful. Don’t you think?

Deserted, alone, with nowhere to go, no place to call home because home is where the heart is, and even with the sea of people littering the cityscape, the silence of abandonment echoes deafeningly in me. Hunger for that connection starves rational thought, fed through years of abuse or neglect, and keeps the solution always just beyond the fingertips of my reality. I know it is there, if only I could reach out and grasp it.

Abandonment issues are troublesome haunts in people’s lives. How they are created is useful for each individual to understand; it helps move through the issues. Even without fully understanding their origins, it is still possible to move through abandonment issues. We often will never know what happened or why with some people in our history, and we need to satisfy ourselves in that knowledge.

Even by the measure of our own lives, we understand that people behave irrationally and very poorly at times. My life is rippled with choices, actions, and words said that defy explanation. Our goal, of course, is to improve upon ourselves each step of the way. Understanding that each generation has been influenced and socialized differently, we can accept their imperfections, and our own, as we all represent a rung in the ladder of progress for the human race, our family, and ourselves. Step-by-step.

Just because someone else failed, doesn’t make us the failure, or them a failure. The hardest thing in the world is to accept what is. Not trying to make it right, not becoming bitter just because we want to make it wrong. It just is what it is. People are people, I have my shortcomings, my family has shortcomings, and as far as I can tell, so do most people that I know. It doesn’t make any of us wrong. We’re doing life together, and in our insignificant ways, our individual journeys impacts the whole, and more-so when we’re connected.

Ongoing abandonment issues, from my studied perspective, resist change. At the very core comes a serious trust issue when confronted with letting-go and relating fully and completely with other people. The guard is up, the radar is (fine-tuned we think, but is) on maximum levels of sensitivity, and the archives are spewing all the old scenarios from the bad-memory-banks in order to prevent the same things from happening again. Nothing happens. Isolation continues. Abandonment is made more real.

God help me, I say in the face of such adversity. Existence requires purpose, purpose requires relationship, relationship inspires the best (and according to the level of relational health) in one another. Relationship can be friendships, spouse or partner, and others in communities we engage. Without any of these, walls cannot come down.

Bringing down the house means knowing these walls are there. It means recognizing them when they come up. It means finding the courage to open up and expose yourself and the fears to experience the event anyway, regardless of the feared outcome. Without DOING IT, the new experiences that will prove otherwise cannot happen. Positive experiences need to happen to restore balance, faith, and trust in self and others. Only you have the key.

Unlock the gate, and start letting that wounded heart beat openly. Hold in check the fears, feel the pain and do it anyway. Let your pain serve to feed your courage. It is simply there to remind you that you are alive, that you are courageous, and that you are on the verge of a major breakthrough experience. Keep letting them in, over and over again.

We all make mistakes, and we all have misunderstandings. Allow this knowledge to serve as a balance-point to create openess even in moments when perceived injustices are occurring. Quite often, the abandonment history has tales that distort the perception of reality. This often leads the mind to believe something is happening that is not. It also hears and understands things based upon experiences of the listener, rather than the intention of the speaker. So allow this openess to communicate, ask questions, give second chances, and give the process time.

Step-by-step, abandonment and trust issues can be overcome, and the peaceful knowledge and comfort that comes from nurturing a garden of friendships blossoming over a lifetime, with death both physical and metaphorical as people come and go, and time passes along with the rhythm of nature’s heartbeat. It is all transient, and we always remain connected on that heart level. Now trust, and let go.

Getting excited about life can sometimes seem elusive when we’re dealing with many challenges and the associated stress. We always want to experience the best that life has to offer. At times, this preference may have us trying to avoid the challenges life throws our way. Regardless of my preference though, life seems to proceed and the challenge is survived. Along the way, as multiple challenging life situations are simply allowed to co-exist, I discovered an important quality that sustains and fuels my spirit. Not only does this quality help with the journey through difficulty, it also attracts positive experiences that can act as a counter-balance. This quality is gratitude.

Gratitude is more than just acknowledging thanks. It is more than intellectual exercise. It is much more than an obligation. Gratitude is a state of being that appreciates all that is good and welcomed in our life. Gratitude appreciates from the mind through intentional thought that recognizes the richness of our emotional connections with others, and all good things that bless our lives. Relationships are the most significant source for virtually all experiences of gratitude.

Relationship is at play in every interaction and opportunity with another living being. This is one significant reason why pets have been recognized as having a therapeutic and healing effect on patients. The positive experience and exchange of loving energy is present in that moment creating a brief encounter of gratitude, love, and joy. The worry and fear related to a loss of health is momentarily forgotten allowing the fullness of the positive experience to work its’ magic. Taking hold of this perspective, if we acknowledge and allow this focus to become a guiding presence with every connection to another life, I wonder how much more gratitude would be experienced and how much more magic would be enjoyed? I have been enjoying this experience of gratitude and how it positively affects my outlook and each day. With this enjoyment also comes the fuel to go further, not just with gratitude, but also with every other area and dream for my life. A large part of this is the gratitude for the unknown.

The unknown represents the many surprises that show up every day. Too often, we’re so busy with our daily agenda that we don’t take the time to notice the unexpected and discover what surprise might be available for us in that moment. This is when the unknown can be thought of as the Unknown, the Mystery, the Universe, the Creator, etc. Whatever your belief system, there is an invisible element to the beauty and magic that has created all that we see and experience around us every year. Noticing the surprises that show up each day can enhance the experience of the unknown, strengthening the relationship with the Unknown, and increasing the experience of gratitude. With a focus and attention on gratitude each day, the experience of it in your body, in your being, heightens a sense of energy that could be thought of as aliveness. This energy, also a powerful and positive energy, attracts likeness. This is where it is important to know that gratitude is more than an intellectual exercise.

Experiencing, or feeling the energy of gratitude fully in the body is as important as the mental focus on those things you are grateful for. The mental process assists in the transformation to living a life of gratitude. The bodily experience will arrive with consistent mental focus, capturing the negative thoughts and replacing them with a positive thought, preferably combined within the context of gratitude. Consistent effort equates to practicing until this outlook and way of being becomes a habit – a positive habit that replaces one or many negative habits. As you can see, this is not an exercise of obligatory duty, offering kindness, thanks, etc., out of a sense of responsibility to others. This is an act for your own freedom and well-being.

If we are resentful we cannot experience gratitude. Trying to express gratitude out of duty to another is misplaced and misdirected. Gratitude isn’t about what you are giving another. Gratitude is about you – being in gratitude – and what it gives you. This again requires that some attention and focus must be given to the negative thoughts that are preventing the beautiful and powerful experience of gratitude. Inquire within yourself to understand the root that blocks your progress. Acknowledge the weakness once it is identified and invite the weakness to observe while you dance with possibility through exercising gratitude. In time healing and transformation will occur. Be patient with the process and yourself.

Too often we want to see results today, let alone tomorrow. As with the nature of all things, seeds need time to take root and grow. Even here you can experience gratitude, knowing that the Unknown is also acting invisibly upon each see that you plant. The best aspect of this possible reality is that it relinquishes your need to fret and worry about the results. This permits other qualities to arise within your being that also contributes to the fullest experience of gratitude: Faith and trust. Continue with the journey of gratitude and transformation knowing that you are going to see results without worrying what those results should look like. Don’t look at where you’re not, look at where you are and be joyous!

Too often today I read messages, books, and lessons that suggest “do not express your emotions.” Rather, it is expected that I “rise above them” and stay centred. There is some truth to those suggestions but it also ignores some steps.

Over the past two years I have dealt with the emotional turbulence that goes with marital breakdown, starting a business, financial pressure, challenging old belief structures, and discovering my truth for spirituality. Many times I was told, “let it go” and I would ask, “how do you do that?” I rarely received a reply, let alone an adequate one. Most often, I got a dumb look in return. You know the one, kind of a vacant stare.

Let it go is an expression for process. Let it go does not mean ‘do not feel bothered.’ Let it go means to engage, feel, and express your feelings. The danger of not letting go will store those feelings in the body. You’ve heard the warning; don’t bottle up your feelings. Bottled up feelings, stored energy in the body will cause greater and greater turmoil and intensity with each emotional encounter. Give it voice instead and you have let it go.

A baby can be happy in one instant, content, then bubbly and silly, to the loudest screeching at the highest decibels, suddenly laughing delightedly, and finally asleep contentedly. The baby switches gears easily moving from one emotional state to another. The baby gives full expression to the moment. You and I have been taught to not fully embrace or express our emotions. The instructions have been incomplete, contradictory, and self-serving.

• Anger is wrong, sadness is okay.
• Bottling it up is bad so let it go.
• You want a reason to cry? I’ll give you a reason to cry.
• Children are to be seen and not heard.
• You should be grateful for the pain.

Sometimes, these comments and the contradictions make you just want to run and hide from this insane world. You and I grow older, suppressing and controlling our feelings, biting our tongue, and learning to not burden others with emotions. One day, you suffer burnout, a breakdown, anxiety attacks, or a depression. One man I knew was driving home and went completely blank. He forgot who he was, where he lived, how to drive. This pattern of controlled destruction has to stop.

The next challenge is learning to let go as an adult. This requires an ability to communicate effectively and to be in touch with emotions. Too often things build up until a huge tirade and explosion takes out those closest to you and half the neighbourhood block. It becomes an attack instead of an expression of meaning. The attack adds more guilt and sorrow. Seeking forgiveness the sorrow and despair heighten as you are ignored for your outburst. Screaming babies are cooed, hugged, and comforted.

Emotions are important to the human experience. If they weren’t we wouldn’t have them. Don’t deny them. Don’t suppress them. Let them take voice as an expression of who you are, who you are here to be, and what you value. Don’t use them as a weapon to demean, belittle, or be vicious with another person. Emotions are all about you so own it and give them voice. I see a need for this to be learned and integrated back into our social fabric for a healthier society. Be the creative being that you and I were born to be.

Yesterday, I felt my emotions and I gave them voice. In doing so, I also gave voice to the values that I stand for and who I am here to be. I will live my life out loud, I will voice my passions, I will live my vision/dream, and I will be who I AM.

The problem with wanting to understand is that it is a never-ending story.

“So how does this work?”

Well this goes here and does that causing that thing to go beep and that does this.

“Okay, so how does this, here, that, thing, beep, does this each happen and work?”

And down the rabbit hole I go.

So when you stumble around this site, wondering why you read something that sounds like advice but doesn’t really feel like it gives an answer; you’ve hit the jack-pot.

With understanding, you will gain access to your Answers.

I log in to check my site stats. I’ve got lots of archived articles from the old scheduled for release this week. What else is there to do? As I ponder ever so briefly at my WordPress dashboard, eyes glancing over the posts, incoming links, and comments recently added by site visitors. That thing is still pushing.

As quickly as I launched into my WordPress account, I hit the Write Post link and start typing. I feel it gnawing at me, wanting to give voice to the violent push and pull that happens sometimes during transition. Having experienced a few too many set-backs stacked back-to-back, a defensive posture wants to cringe back from the resistance. Big mistake when that happens.

The word success in the title represents becoming the best that you can. It’s not about material wealth, although it would not be without material comforts given the passions, ambitions, purposes, and values that drive you. There is no right or wrong, there are just differences, just as there are many people. With life having crashed reality back down the personal evolution chain, a time may arise when there is no belief, will, or strength to continue.

Push on! This is what it is to become anything. Overcoming has been the milestone in every achievement set upon by any person, at any age, for any reason. From learning to tie a shoe-lace, to reaching the summit of Mount Everest. Frustration, fear, anger, tears, and all that negative garbage that gets in your way, is just stuff for you to overcome.

Push on! Face it Head-On, and Change Toward Success!

I’ve been much busier lately. I’ve been getting out more, experiencing more, working more, and enjoying the ride. As a coach, I’m challenged to create my life daily rather than just go about life’s repetitions every day. Going about life’s repetitions for over a decade led to me waking up one day wondering, “How did I get here?” I hear similar views and feelings from many people. I read about it in the papers, see shows that reflect a similar reality, and meet folks at the coffee shop lamenting the same meaninglessness. Meaning in life is important. Rather than talk about meaning and purpose today, as I’ve usually done in the past, I’m instead going to talk about creating my life daily.

As I said, I’m a coach and one would expect a coach to have their shit together or to at least know their shit. A pun or two inadvertently enjoyed there. Now some of you are chuckling and yet, I wonder how many of you are also surprised to learn that a coach has problems? Well, again this would be a matter of perspective.

My business history involved problem-solving and creating and managing change, and these were two of the most common themes and talents I exercised naturally for more than a decade. I was good at what I did and I was good with people. I never saw what was impossible and only focused on what is possible. I rarely took ‘no’ for an answer and frequently inspired other’s perspectives to find the solutions. This is where a problem perspective has the opportunity to transform into seeing what is possible. This is a crucial moment of recognizing the power you have with choice. Choice has less to do with outer outcome or circumstances and more to do with inner being.

Being at choice is important to creating my day. Each day I wake up knowing what I don’t want via past experiences. This allows me to reframe the ‘don’t want‘ into a powerful positive ‘want‘. Stating verbally what I want energizes and strengthens the ownership I have for creating the life I desire. It’s useful to be specific as possible and yet, without data we have little information to be specific with; worse still, with bad data – bad experiences – we have incorrect or incomplete data to state what is wanted. Nonetheless, this exercise opens up power, choice, and possibility for what is to come on this day.

Embarking upon the journey today, I welcome each and every experience and social interaction. Where situations offer it, I am able to articulate and reframe where necessary what I do or don’t want in a given area of my life. Without specifics for what I do want, I may substitute the tangibles with intangibles; qualities that will satisfy my inner spirit. This exercise, being new in action or objective, may require some blind groping initially that are full of intangibles; until enough experience has yielded the information that allows you to clarify the tangibles. This is the art of creating your life.

It is knowing that you are at choice at every moment of every day. Even a non-choice is a choice. Every mistake or bad experience is useful information that offers insight into right action for future choices. Again, knowing that you are at choice allows for mistakes without self-blame. Instead, mistakes are met with gratitude and embraced to enact change that will bring about more positive experiences. Where the future cannot be envisioned, I can project my want with intangibles such as joy, fulfillment, love, or whatever other descriptor that will shift my energy to focus on the power of wants rather than the negativity of ‘don’t wants’. Then I enjoy the journey and the process and embrace the natural unfolding of me and my life. Do we ever stop learning about ourselves?

Try using any combination of the following to help you create your day:

What do I want?
What don’t I want?
Repeated intentionally: What do I want?
What is my passion?
What is my purpose?
What brings me joy?
What causes me to forget the time?
What do I want more of?
What do I want less of?

State as often as possible what I want.
Notice what I’m doing and how or who I am being.
Notice qualities, traits, characteristics, etc. about self and others.

Observe my beliefs and emotions:
Are they serving me?
Am I serving them?
What is it costing me?
What am I saying Yes to?
What am I saying No to?

Be courageous.
Be gentle.
Be patient.
Be love.

Love is the Force behind all of Creation and it is the same driving force that inspires human-beings to pursue. I recall when I was a regular attendee at church and new to the Christian faith that the conversation around God’s Will came up quite often. In transition myself, this was an urgent issue for me at that time. Often, other members would tell me to seek God’s Will for my life and when I asked what that meant I never received an adequate explanation of any kind. Scripture would be quoted, that God had a plan and purpose, be a missionary, be happy in whatever work you do, don’t be too demanding, and a plethora of other sorts of replies.

Since leaving the church, I continued a spiritual journey of sorts – after a lengthy break – that saw me delve into the quantum field to understand more about the nature of the universe and matter. It saw me explore other spiritual teachings and teachers, and finally, it saw me sit within my own being to discover what truths would rise from within. Much of what I have written here and included on my web site are what have arisen from within.

Christians continually come into my daily life, in fact more than one of my clients come from various Christian perspectives and I successfully coach them within the context of their belief system. A dear friend of mine, having a similar path of both spirituality and life’s tragedies has exposed me to other insights into the history of Christianity. For example, around 800A.D. is when the word God came into use as a missionary attempted to convey a name to Germans for God based upon the original names used in the middle-east countries languages. God meaning Good – and more encompassing than that.

The middle-east languages meaning have a wider definition for what God is than what the western world has done with the concept of God. This is all based upon a lecture I heard by a Christian-based scholar and speaker. In Aramaic, the language, culture, education and simplicity of the common people to whom Jesus spoke has a significant and richer meaning than what the scriptures and prayers have come to mean in our western culture. I was fascinated by this particular talk because it really resonated with many of the shifts I had gone through as well.

For example, the Lord’s Prayer, in Aramaic, contains subtle and important differences in meaning, translation, and interpretation from the standard Lord’s Prayer that most Christians might be accustomed to following. Where we use the phrase ‘God’s Will be done,’ the word Will is not how society commonly interprets the definition of Will.

A more accurate translation is God’s Pleasure, or God’s Delight, and could even be as my thoughts provoked, as God’s Desire. In this context it becomes clear that the sense of the meaning is to do what brings God Joy. Within this context, and confirmed within the content of this lecture, God’s Will is to see us in a state of Love and functioning from a state of Love. So here’s a statement to help anyone who is wondering about God’s Will for their life:

His delight is the expression of Love manifested in you, in your actions, in your relationships, and in the creative passion that you shine forth in service to all of the world and existence.

As I completed capturing these thoughts on paper at the lecture, it also dawned on me that the meaning of life becomes apparent: Love.

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