Pray, Meditate & Visualize Success Daily

I went to Darlene’s meditation session yesterday. I fell asleep as I knew that I would, but I still woke feeling better. She did some healing work on my kidneys too. She can read auras which I think is cool she said mine was gold with flecks of green in it yesterday.
I was meditating on healing my body, getting the kidney stone out.

We talked for like half an hour about spiritual realm stuff. It was nice to really talk with someone about that stuff that makes you sound kooky.

I am not a huge fan of organized religion, but I am a fan of group worship and fellowship. I’ve been going to Mrs. Bev’s Congregational Church, which I think is a sort of mellow church and everyone is super sweet. the average age is probably 69 years old. lol, but they’re doing their thing and they make me feel welcome. Church is a nice way for me to start the week. A nice pause to be grateful and thoughtful.

Darlene came over this morning and led me through a guided healing meditation. I stayed awake through this one. lol. I did enjoy it and will continue to seek ways to integrate meditation in my life…

Today a colleague from work who is retired came by and led two of us through a guided meditation for healing. It was really cool. I feel refreshed afterwards (I may have had a bit of a nap!). I don’t know much about formal meditations but I really would like to develop a personal, daily practice, I think that would be one of the top things I could take out of this experience I’m going through.

We also got these cool pink bead bracelets that I think is lovely and I am wearing mine now :-) it is a reminder that we are love.

Next steps? Set aside 5 minutes to be more focused on meditation and start to develop a practice?

is very hard. even in this season of my life where i have no choice but to be calmer, more patient, and have more opportunity to be quiet and still, it is still work. I am trying to be more present and grateful daily. I am trying to work on talking to God more just as the day goes by. I am also trying to just stop.at.different.points.in.the.day and just…breathe, regroup and refocus.

My days are better when I start them with visualization and am organized. I am trying to get a good meditation and stillness habit before life takes off like a shot again….

I am very spiritual, but not particularly religious, but I don’t doubt that there’s a God, for no other reason than the comfort that thought (and the serendipitous and miraculous things that have happened in my life) brings to me. so my spiritual growth in this season is one of the best things to come from crisis.

The greatest battle is not physical but psychological. 218 / 365“The demons telling us to give up when we push ourselves to the limit can never be silenced for good. They must always be answered by the quiet, steady dignity that simply refuses to give in. Courage. We all suffer. Keep going.” -Graeme Fife

Poet Gabrielle Bouliane: Then, read her poem, “When You Hear That I Have Died, Think of This”. Here are two stanzas from her poem:

“When you hear that I have died, and you will, remember your best revenge is to live well, take risks, save up money and chase your perfect happiness. Beat the system and learn to make your art really support you, craft into something your audience can’t live without. Then make the world an even slightly better place — stop throwing your cigarettes on the ground, vote in the next election, graffiti your life on the eyes of the hungry.

Then just do me one last favor. Please. Love something. Anything. Start with yourself, but find passion in everything, from an apple pie to a novel, make a family, get a degree, walk whatever path is yours with your chin up and feet planted firmly. Have the best stories to tell in the old folk’s home, about lifelong friendships and epic love affairs, about the time you lost everything and yet found yourself happier than when you began . . .”

http://blog.chasejarvis.com/blog/2009/08/9-things-to-do-when-youre-feeling-stale/

Being a professional creative might seem like the ultimate dream job for some–and for many of us it is. But it ain’t always easy. In fact, staying inspired is really hard work. I recently received the above tweet (to @chasejarvis) and it got me thinking. Here’s 9 things I’ve done over the course of my 10+ year career that have helped me overcome those times when uninspired or stale work invades:

1. Make a major life change. For me, I was in a stale spot in 2005, unsure of what to do next, so we up-and-moved to Paris. It changed my work, my career, and my life. Moving might sound like a huge deal, but it doesn’t have to be. Try Berlin, New York, or anywhere on the planet that inspires or scares you. Things like this can be done cheaply – and once you put your mind to it, barriers just fall away. Inspiration points = 10.

2. Travel. This can take many forms depending on your budget and timeline, but the gist is to shake up your routine. I can be lots of long weekends regionally, or the other side of the globe. Don’t rely on your standard morning cereal to inspire you. Have fish soup for breakfast in Japan, baked beans in London, or a tuna fish sandwich on Route 66. Sleep in tent or a hostel, or a castle. Travel by train, foot, bike or rickshaw. Mix it up. Meet people.

3. Set the Camera Down. Give yourself a break. Live a life without your camera for a predetermined time frame – a month or two or three. For me, this made me miss shooting soo much. I noticed things in the world that I longed to photograph. And when I picked up that camera again, I was hungry.

4. Watch films. And I’m not necessarily referring to summer blockbusters. I mean track down some art films. Documentaries. Fantasies. Seek out your local art house cinema, or downloa some films that you’d not ordinarily put atop your list. Reach out to friends and colleagues for their most inspiring flicks. This will get your mind going both conceptually and visually.

5. Look inside. Deal with that stuff in your life that you’re not dealing with, or point a spotlight on those things in you that you know not what they are. Personal sacrifices…[click the ‘continue reading’ link below]
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…and insights are a huge key to individual creativity and often bring out the best in who we are. These experiences can be humbling and challenging. Haven’t talked with your brother in 2 years because of that fight you guys had? Reach out. Not sure why you have an aversion to hard work, success or failure? Explore that. And let yourself experience those emotions, those pains, or those moments of clarity you find on that journey. Those things can drive incredible work in your creative self. What pictures could you take that no one else in the world could take? Those can only be found by looking inside. You want a “signature” style? That’s where you’ll find it.

6. Become a voracious reader. It seems like a cycle for me – when I read a lot I’m creative, and I’m creative when I read a lot. The material I’m reading matters a little, but generally I chow down on a steady diet of biographies of artists I admire, classic fiction, philosophy, books on cultivating creativity, and monthlies in design, obscure fashion rags, or inspiring foreign design magazines. Blogs too – especially ones that keep me guessing on their content – less how to and more ‘why’. Whatever your ‘thing’ is. Read about it.

7. Carry a sketchbook or an iPhone. All the times in my life when I’ve been on the creative rocketship have included a sketchbook as a part of my daily routine. I’ve never sat down and particularly drawn a ton, but I jot notes, make sketches, and take notice of things that inspire me. For me, this has really transformed into a role for my iPhone. The camera is my visual notebook – a snap here or there, a dissection of the visual vocabulary around me. I couldn’t live without it. Voice memos that I mail to myself in brief moments of inspiration, or notes I jot and send myself via email. Whether it’s a notebook or a handheld computer, the important thing is that you’re recording ideas, inspiration, emotions for later reconsideration.

8. Get healthy. There’s a longstanding tradition of artists in every culture being exceptionally unhealthy creatures. Complete overindulgence to the point of destruction. While I’m a strong advocate of experience, experimentation, and sometimes living loudly – I’ve found that for me these are ultimately best if they’re short term methods to blow off steam or to temporarily avoid what’s going on inside. Necessary evils I’d argue–but definitely not the key to creativity. I’m far more creative when I’m in a healthy place. Balanced, energized, alive, honed, exercising, taking time for myself, my friends, and my family.

9. Do something creative everyday as a practice. If you sit around waiting for the perfect inspiration, you’ll make a lot less stuff, and the stuff you do make will be of a lot lower quality because your skills will be in the gutter. Creativity can be fostered. There are neural pathways that you’re opening up, blood that your pumping around your brain. Again, enter my iphone. I post photos almost every single day (follow this on Twitter and Facebook). Some are great, quirky, unusual or evocative; others not so much. Banal. Purely experiential. Not everything you make will be great, but you’ll be more attuned to the things you make that are great, and you’ll have the wisdom to recognize those things that beg for more of your creative attention when they hit you like a freight train.

Got to see this Indian Mystic and Spiritual leader speak today and it was refreshing. He said we’re all in (or should be) the business of well-being. also told a funny allegory/fable about getting to the top on BS and another about not always doing what worked in the past. Great vibe, smart and entertaining and refreshing to the soul.

It sucks to experience rejection.

No one likes it. It’s the bane of the dating & entrepreneurial experience.

As someone who has experienced rejection many times, I’ve figured out something. It’s only truly rejection if you OWN the rejection. Rejection, at its core, is you rejecting yourself.

I know that sounds a little weird, so let me explain.

If someone “rejects” you, the way you feel about it is directly related to the STORY YOU tell yourself about it.

When you experience rejection with a disempowered attitude, you say to yourself something like: “I’m unlovable”, “I’m not good enough”, “I’ll never find love” or “This is how it always happens”.

But – in reality, are those things true? What I’ve found is categorically – NO.

Because I write and created TDL, many people think I’m in a wonderful relationship. But I’m single. In fact I don’t think there’s anyone who needs TDL more than me. What I share with you every day isn’t from a place of “greater authority”, it’s because I’m sharing every day what I’m learning. And let me tell you, I’ve learned A LOT about rejection, both from women and in business.

The funny thing is, what seems like such a “disaster” in the moment, time & time again has been nothing short of pure GRACE. This isn’t some Pollyanna, fakely optimistic point of view, either. I’ve looked back over the years at the people who “rejected me”, and have seen how their lives turned out. Time and time again I see, by the reflection of my own life path, that there’s no way in hell I would have been able to step into my power by forming a partnership with those people.

I hate it when people say: “rejection is God’s protection”; it’s so trite and does NOT help in the moment. But what I can tell you is that, in a Uni-verse where “like attracts like”, if you’re trying to fit a triangle into a circular hole, it just won’t fit. It doesn’t matter how pretty, attractive or interesting that circular hole is, aint no way a triangle is going in there.

What I’ve found recently is that instead of trying to force, I just keep coming back to my breath, to my joy of writing, to my exercise program and to my relationship with my Creator. I don’t cling anymore; instead I have figured out that I am a triangle, not a circle. And so in this realization, I no longer mourn not fitting with circles; I know who I am and where I fit.

So I focus on belonging to myself, to my Creator and expressing my gifts. You could say I focus on “my game”. Now every time I find myself straying away from remembering I’m a triangle, I stop, feel my feelings and let go of the outcome.

It’s still not easy, but it’s getting easier. At our core we all want to love and be loved. Just make sure it’s not at the expense of breaking yourself to fit into a shape that isn’t where you naturally belong.

Remember, you are only truly rejected when you OWN the rejection. If you see the Uni-verse as a giant sorting pile trying to find harmony and balance, you will see these temporary “rejections” as Grace leading you to where and with whom you belong.

Love,

Mastin