TupeloKenyon.com » Law of Attraction

Directed Thinking vs. Compulsive Thinking

Tupelo — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 02:56:50 +0000

For instrumental music while reading, choose: hi-fi (broadband) or low-fi.

Do you have to think, or do you think to have?

Thinking should be optional. Compulsory thinking is all too common. If your thoughts are non-stop, you are not thinking. Instead, your thoughts are having their way with you.

Your life is an effect of the thoughts that receive the most attention. If the thought process runs incessantly, willy-nilly, it’s easy to feel lost in the physical world, and life feels like something that just happens to you.

When you choose thoughts on purpose and concentrate your attention on those, your life is one of your own choosing, deliberately and strategically created, one thought at a time.

“Strategy is a style of thinking, a conscious and deliberate process, an intensive implementation system, the science of insuring future success.” - Pete Johnson

Unforeseen Benefits of Disciplined Thinking

Do you remember sitting in those uncomfortable desks at school, bored with what was being taught, and wondering how you’d ever use it in the real world? I studied mathematics for a couple of years in college. It came easy for me, but I remember marveling at how I was learning an entirely new language comprised of numbers, symbols and other odd characters that only other mathematicians would recognize or understand.

What was I going to do with all that gobbeldy-gook? Become a teacher? I could have taught it to other students who would also wonder about its practical value in their lives. I know calculus is handy for determining space travel trajectories and geometry is handy for carpentry, but beyond that, much of what I was learning left me feeling, “Cool, so what?”

To balance my checkbook, I really don’t access the theorems of calculus or the formulas of analytical geometry - although I was fascinated to learn a little about sacred geometry. (If you are interested in exploring it more, I wrote a short review of a fascinating book called “Nothing in the Book is True, But It’s Exactly How Things Are” by Bob Frissell. Here’s a link to my Recommended Books page.)

I was able to use trigonometry once to build a cabin in Alaska. It’s base was 23′ square, it was 17′ tall, and was built with the exact same angles and ratios as the Great Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt. I used trig tables for sine, cosine and tangent, but that’s the only time that strange language of advanced mathematics ever intersected my daily life.

Along with a few helpful ideas, I also learned lots of extraneous details in school. Still, the mental training I received and the discipline I learned studying mathematics has helped me every single day in many unforeseen ways.

“Thoughts are energy. And you can make your world or break your world by thinking.” - Susan S. Taylor

Directed Thinking

I learned to think deliberately. I learned how to steer my thoughts and follow-through from A to B, B to C, C to D, and so on. It takes focus, concentration and one-pointed awareness sustained over a period of time. It’s about having an attention span that’s long enough to accomplish complicated tasks.

I took it for granted and assumed everyone thinks this way. In time, I discovered that many of the people I met simply don’t have the mental chops. They have the potential, but instead of deliberate mental training and exercise, many are content with the ever-shortening attention span that results from a steady diet of quick sound bites and the overwhelming video barrage so common on TV. Use it or lose it, and it looks like functional attention spans are lost to many.

“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason so few engage in it.” - Henry Ford (1863-1947)

“Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.” - Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-68)

This skill of directed thinking comes in handy in many of my everyday activities, like writing this article, writing a song, learning to play an instrument, producing a CD or DVD, creating a website, building a house or a studio, or just talking with a friend and logically trouble-shooting a technical problem. In retrospect, I consider this ability of directed thinking to be one of the most valuable skills I have to show for all those years in school. And, it’s a major contributing factor to the ongoing creation of the life of my dreams.

“The secret of living a life of excellence is merely a matter of thinking thoughts of excellence. Really, it’s a matter of programming our minds with the kind of information that will set us free.” - Charles R. Swindoll

“Prosperity is a way of living and thinking, and not just money or things. Poverty is a way of living and thinking, and not just a lack of money or things.” - Eric Butterworth

I Am Thinking – I Am Not the Thoughts

Since I learned early how to pick and choose my thoughts and follow through with a deliberate train of thought, I realized a valuable spiritual principle: Thoughts are transitory – they come and they go. If I am choosing thoughts on purpose, my sense of self, my identity, is beyond the realm of thoughts. “Who I am” is the thinker of the thoughts – the watcher.

“Who is the watcher, who sits in the stillness and knows,
And who is the looker, who notices the king wears no clothes.
Who is the seer, who sees beyond the mind,
And who is the seeker, who’ll find the grand design.”
(From the song, “Who is the Watcher” by Tupelo Kenyon)

Beyond Thought

Spiritual awareness (aka religious experience) is all about going beyond the mind into the realm of pure being. Disciplines and rituals from all cultures through the ages have been used to help take the practitioner beyond the mental realm of thoughts, words and identification with physical things.

“Thinking, understanding, reasoning, willing, call not these Soul! They are its actions, but they are not its essence.” - Akhenaton - Egyptian king (d. c.1354 BC)

Meditation helps to identify and then identify with the being behind the thoughts. Prayer beads, mantras, mandalas and zen koans are all used to transcend the chatter of the typical undisciplined mind. Musicians concentrate on melodies or musical passages, a process which stops the internal string of words which are otherwise forever playing in the mind.

Awareness grows only when the internal dialog is slowed and eventually stopped. Even when the parade of thoughts is curtailed only for brief moments, the awareness of “I am” has a chance to shine through like the sun breaking through the clouds. (See previous article, “Beyond Science, Philosophy and Religion.)

Thinking on Purpose

Once you no longer identify yourself with the stream of thoughts that once dominated your life, you are free to use thoughts deliberately, on purpose, as a tool to help you manifest chosen outcomes. Instead of being blown all over the mental map by every thought that presents itself, you are able to be a thought wrangler.

You can keep them under control, manageable, and keep your life heading in the general direction you choose. When you notice a stray thought going off in another direction, you can redirect it to better support your vision, or you can choose to ignore it altogether and replace it with another thought.

This ability to think deliberately, on purpose, is directly related to your quality of life. Since the Law of Attraction is continuously bringing you the balance of your thoughts, what could be more important than learning to create the life of your dreams, on purpose, by thinking deliberately?

“Stop thinking in terms of limitations and start thinking in terms of possibilities.” - Terry Josephson

Whenever you notice a thought taking you away from your chosen direction, immediately replace it with another that feels better. Your emotions will let you know if a particular thought is working for you or against you. If you feel good, your present thoughts are now helping to manifest the outcome you choose. If you feel bad, your present thoughts are now taking you away from the outcome you choose. (See previous article, “The Law of Attraction.”)

“Intuition will tell the thinking mind where to look next.” - Dr. Jonas Salk (b. 1914)

A Tool or a Prison

Your thoughts and the realm of thinking can be a powerful tool if it is recognized as such and used from the broader perspective of who you really are: awareness, consciousness, pure being. Or your thoughts and the realm of thinking can be a prison keeping you in an illusory world of words and things, mental constructs and objects of the senses.

“Awareness is not the same as thought. It lies beyond thinking, although it makes no use of thinking, honoring it’s value and it’s power. Awareness is more like a vessel which can hold and contain our thinking, helping us to see and know our thought as thought rather than getting caught up in them as reality.” - Jon Kabit-Zinn

This world of matter is a marvelous place, an incredible opportunity to experience the grandeur of the universe from within the universe. But, by all indications, we are just passing through.

We emerge from the stillness, the vast sea of emptiness. Compared to eternity, a lifetime is a brief moment, the wink of an eye, and then we return from whence we came. Where is that? Where is eternity? Where is the vast sea of emptiness? Is it everywhere? Is it nowhere? Here’s some interesting wordplay inspired by something Dr. Wayne Dyer said in his live presentation of “The Power of Intention” . . .

First we are nowhere.
Now here.
Then nowhere again.

Nowhere.
Now here.
Nowhere.

From this broader perspective, it’s folly to identify with the physical world or any of its attributes, including thinking.

“Just like an afternoon that disappears too soon,
Another summer’s day that fades away.
See how it marches on, another year is gone,
No time to dwell upon our fleeting fate.

“How can we wait again another day,
Now that we know how fast they always slip away.
Our little world’s our emphasis, this life is a parenthesis,
A heartbeat in eternity’s highway.”
(From the song, “A Heartbeat in Eternity’s Highway” by Tupelo Kenyon.)

Why not choose the best of both worlds? We are here now, in this world to enjoy and appreciate all that it has to offer. But, we are not of it – we’re just passing through.

The Unified Field That Contains Everything

In a live retreat, I heard Eckheart Tolle say the measure of spiritual maturity is how well you are able to transcend thought. I am paraphrasing, but my sense of his message is that there’s an infinite realm of being that exists as a colossal field. Everything else is included in that field. This is the same unified field that Einstein was trying to reconcile mathematically in the later years of his life. Perhaps “who we really are” is the field itself.

“A human being is part of a whole, called by us the “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest–a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” - Albert Einstein (1875-1955)

As we live our physical lives, we are individual manifestations of the awareness of the universe, beyond thought, beyond things, beyond phenomenon. We are the silent watcher who sits in the stillness and knows.

“The evolution of consciousness culminates in an all-inclusive consciousness that functions in the context of the infinite and the eternal.” - Phiroz Mehta

When we know that to be true, we are free of the incessant chatter of our internal dialog – our thoughts. The jumping monkey mind still performs its histrionics but we no longer identify with it. It’s not who we are – it’s a tool to be tamed and used purposefully.

We can still think – clearly, deliberately and powerfully whenever we choose.

But we don’t have to!

Thoughts are one of the most powerful forces in the universe. But it’s not who we are. We are much more than that . . . more powerful and much grander than our thoughts can imagine.

While reading, did you choose to hear the relaxing instrumental music linked at the beginning of this article? To learn more about it, click here.

Did you get something good from this article? You can also enjoy the feeling of giving. Click here to leave a donation for Tupelo. Thank you.

Listen FREE to the songs below . . . chosen to enhance the ideas in this article.

Who is the Watcher
Explores the silent witness within and the idea that life occurs in this present moment. Always.
^{http://www.somemusicmatters.com/DescX.html#Anchor-14}

A Heartbeat in Eternity’s Highway
In the grand scheme of things, what’s the difference between a single moment and all of eternity? What’s the point of reference?
^{http://www.somemusicmatters.com/DescX.html#Anchor17}

It’ll Be All Right Now
It’s one thing to understand intellectually that the thoughts we think mold our experience, and another thing to live every moment as if it really is a basic law of nature.
^{http://www.somemusicmatters.com/DescX.html#Anchor10}

Soul in the Stars
It feels good to try to see the bigger picture once in awhile,and to focus on gratitude for what we have, rather than the frustration of what we are lacking.
^{http://www.somemusicmatters.com/DescHere.html#Anchor4}

Here
A love song to the beloved and/or to the larger part of ourselves.
^{http://www.somemusicmatters.com/DescHere.html#Anchor16}

Within Without
An atom and a solar system is virtually the same thing - mostly empty space! Even quantum physics is still wondering, "Is the universe a great big thing, or a great big thought?"
^{http://www.somemusicmatters.com/DescHB.html#Anchor6}

Same Olde Time
Time - it’s so relative. "What if distant starlight shining in the endless sky is just the same, by a different name, as the twinkle in your eye?"
^{http://www.somemusicmatters.com/DescHB.html#Anchor7}

You Gotta Have Fun
Our moments are fleeting . . . and finite. Too few to squander on "bad news". We must steer our attention deliberately in order to attract the kind of life we were born to live.
^{http://www.somemusicmatters.com/DescAnth.html#Anchor20}

Songs by Tupelo

Get a Broader Perspective - Do It Different and Work Smarter
When I think of the view from our broader perspective, to me, it means the viewpoint of our inner self . . . who we really are. Without the filters of our ego, the world looks quite different. The problem is . . . this lofty viewpoint seems illusive. People occasionally identify with broader perspective with no apparent effort or intent, but it’s rare to arrive at such a viewpoint accidentally. More commonly, brief glimpses are caught deliberately by intent, and repeated by personal discipline and the use of clever techniques.

Know Thyself - Ignore Comparisons and Be Yourself
The average person is content to base self-knowledge on comparisons to other people. If this is the measure of self-knowledge, it is based on someone else’s standards. This practice misses the point of “Know Thyself.” Instead, it’s all about how to fit in. We are all unique individuals with our own strengths, talents and nudges leading us to embrace our own best life. True knowledge of self is attained from personal insights of looking inwardly rather than outwardly towards others.

Appreciate Here and Now
No matter what’s going on in your life right now, there’s something to appreciate about it. The act of appreciation rivets our consciousness to this present moment. With our attention focused on the here and now, we are living life fully, since right now is the only time there ever is.

How to Live the Life of Your Dreams Through Intuition
Intuition feels good. That should be enough of a clue it’s something that can be trusted. But, our culture has done a thorough job of instilling doubt about the wisdom of following our instincts. Instead, we are taught to think things through and be logical. These mental tools are important, but they were never intended to be used instead of intuition. They work better when used in conjunction with intuition. If we are open to it, we get nudges and insights to move us in the direction of our greatest joys, our most valuable contributions, and our most satisfying life. Those quiet whispers and gentle taps on the shoulder are examples of inner guidance in action - intuition.

Enhance Your Self-Image on Purpose
Here are twelve common sense reminders on how to inspire yourself. The word “inspire” derives from root words that mean “in spirit” or “spirit within.” Although there’s always another step to take, these points are a natural result of recognizing and identifying with this realization of who we really are.

Ego or Soul? Who’s Driving
Even though I identify my sense of self with soul, there seems to be another “something” inside forever jockeying for position and making its presence known. This is the ego. What’s the difference? How can you know which one is in charge? What are their characteristics? Since I prefer peace to mayhem and contentment to perpetual, blind striving, my goal is to keep soul in the driver’s seat as often as possible. Instead of an either/or situation, I like the idea of soul and ego peacefully coexisting in a manner that best serves the greater good.

Inspire Yourself on Purpose - Inspiration from Inside Out
Here are twelve common sense reminders on how to inspire yourself. The word “inspire” derives from root words that mean “in spirit” or “spirit within.” Although there’s always another step to take, these points are a natural result of recognizing and identifying with this realization of who we really are.

Integrity Through Self-Reliance
When you live your life as if the whisperings from your soul really matter, you are living life in your own way, on your own terms, based on your own realizations on what is right . . . what is good . . . and what is true for you. You are tuned into your own station. The signal you are receiving and the message you are broadcasting with the story of your life are both on the same frequency. You are joyfully and gratefully choosing your favorites from the buffet of life.

How Do You Feel - About Inner Guidance?
Is it a hunch? Is it a voice in your head? Is it something you feel? Don’t confuse what you feel with who you are. Once you are able to access this awareness of pure being and identify yourself with it, you won’t get carried away by whatever emotional cloud happens to be passing by. Celebrate life through one of the more subtle forms of communication available to us - inner guidance.

The Law of Attraction
With anything as important as the law of attraction, it’s a good idea to hear it described many times from many different angles. This article looks at it from several viewpoints as well as revealing how to get the understanding of the law of attraction from the prime source. Many links are provided including links to streaming mp3 songs that incorporate the principles of attraction in the lyrics. Celebrate life with an ever-clearer grasp of how the law of attraction determines your life experience.

Beyond Science, Philosophy and Religion
Is truth absolute or relative? Is there anything beyond science, philosophy and religion? Many of the world’s top quantum physicists think there is. Celebrate life by stretching you imagination.

Articles by Tupelo

Why wait for inspiration to strike?

Be proactive, and go get it.

Better yet, this newsletter brings it to you.

"Inspired on Purpose" newsletter by Tupelo Kenyon contains articles, reviews and resources to supercharge your personal development, inspiration, productivity, abundance and joy.

FREE e-book
Instant download - when you subscribe.

Personal Development Supercharger
101 Tips and Techniques
by Tupelo Kenyon

It’s FREE. Subscribe now.
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Privacy policy: Your email address is secure. I will not sell, rent or trade your information to anyone for any reason. Period. - Tupelo Kenyon

Life Drama as Blockage to Personal Development

Tupelo — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 12:00:03 +0000

For instrumental music while reading, choose: hi-fi (broadband) or low-fi.

Some people seem to relish drama in their lives. They go from one catastrophe to another. They thrive on it as if drama is what makes them feel alive.

You may be able to see that they are attracting these experiences by their daily thoughts and feelings. But, they don’t recognize it from within the narrow confines of their personal drama.

To someone immersed in drama, the idea that they are creating it is completely foreign. They think, “Surely I would never choose . . . (fill-in-the-blank). They act as if such an idea is totally absurd.

There are two scenarios that can explain this kind of manifestation of drama:

1) They are not yet aware that thoughts and feelings are powerful creators, so the dramatic results created are not deliberate.

2) They have at least considered the idea of deliberate creation, but still have unidentified fears holding them back from further personal development. Rather than face those fears, it’s easier to continue to concoct daily drama drivel as an excuse to keep them from focusing on what is truly important.

Be Cause . . . It’s More Effective

Most of us interested in personal development have people in our lives who fit one of these two situations. Does that mean we have to be an effect of their drama in order to interact with them?

Practically speaking, yes, but it’s a matter of degrees. Until we attain the hallowed consciousness of total enlightenment, other people’s drama rubs off on us. But, there are things we can do to minimize the negative effect of these interactions.

Stay Centered

The best thing you can do is maintain your balance and stay connected to source energy. Just because the other person is drowning in drama as a result of their ego being in the driver’s seat, that doesn’t mean you have to join them there to interact with them.

Instead, do your best to allow your connection to spirit to infuse the relationship with the viewpoint of broader perspective. It’s not necessary to force this upon anyone against their will. It is enough for you to remain centered and focused on pure awareness, who you really are. The positive influence you contribute by such a focus is inevitable, even without any deliberate, specific attempts to help. Helpful energy oozes into the relationship simply by your dedication to your own balance and your mindfulness of who you really are.

Focus on Positive Attributes

Whenever you are in the company of someone dawdling in drama, do your best to ignore any of their personal attributes that annoy you. Instead, make a mental list of all their attributes you adore, and place your attention there. This mental exercise will help you interact with this person in the best possible way. As you focus your energy on these positive attributes, the other person responds by accentuating them. The less desirable attributes fade to the background when you are together as a natural result of withdrawing attention from them.

This shift can happen quickly, or it may require a period of time. But by focusing on their best attributes, your experience in the interaction is improved, and their emphasis is gradually shifted to their own positive attributes.

If the other person has any interest in your relationship, they will respond to your gentle emphasis of their most positive traits and their more abrasive traits will not come forward as often, when you are in their company. If the other person has no interest in your relationship, this process will not work as well, if at all. If this is the case, it’s a moot point anyway, because how long would you be inspired to endure an abrasive manner if the other person is not interested in a mutually satisfying relationship?

Personal Development Blockage

Some people may be aware of their potential power to create their lives deliberately, but for myriad reasons, they may be stuck in fear. They may be afraid of their own magnificence and sabotage their own growth with ongoing personal drama.

If the subconscious mind spoke, to might sound something like this: “I couldn’t possibly place any energy or attention on personal development with all this other stuff going on in my life. There’s no time for spiritual matters with the endless necessity of mundane details and sudden emergencies always clamoring for my attention.”

Personal Development is Preceded by the Desire for Personal Development

Of course, you cannot wish personal development upon someone else, no matter how much you think they need it. The desire for personal growth and spiritual development happens one person at a time. The best you can do when interacting with someone bent upon sabotaging their own growth with unnecessary drama is to remain centered yourself while keeping your attention focused upon their positive attributes. In time, the details of your interaction will gravitate around these areas, and your own connection to source will offer a positive influence in their life.

It’s not necessary for you to try to direct or orchestrate this influence in any way. In fact, you may be surprised and delighted in the details of your personal influence. On the other hand, you may never know any of the details of your influence, but you continue anyway simply because kindness feels good, and it’s the right thing to do.

“The way we live our life is like a pebble dropped, into a quiet pond,
It carries on just like a circle growing.
The ripples that we make may touch another shore, you may never know for sure,
How much you’ve helped someone without you knowing.
- from the song, “Be Kind” by Tupelo Kenyon

Be Mindful of This Moment to Make the Next One Better

Life doesn’t have to be an endless struggle from one personal drama to the next. Life can be fun, satisfying and joyful, from moment to moment. The thoughts we think, the pictures we envision, and the feelings we allow make all the difference.

Feel It . . . Then Let it Go

What if you are the one sinking into a whirlpool of personal drama? Recognizing it is the first step to pulling yourself out. Whatever the feeling is, experience it completely so you can let it go completely. Only when you are able to release any particular feeling, are you ready for the next one. If it’s a bad feeling, experience it and then release it so you are empty and available for the better feeling that is sure to come. It works the same way with good feelings. Experience it completely and then release it. Only then are you once again empty and available for an even better feeling.

Choose a Better Thought to Create a Better Feeling

The trick is to be aware of those thoughts, mental pictures and feelings so that you can deliberately make it better, and better, and better. Whenever you feel less than joyful, notice the thoughts and mental pictures that triggered the feelings. Retrace your thoughts for the last few minutes and be objective about them. Are they the kind of thoughts that help move you toward what you really want? Probably not.

Whenever you catch yourself sabotaging your dreams with sloppy thinking, right now, in this present moment, deliberately choose a thought that makes you feel better. If it makes you feel better, even a little, it is helping you move in the direction you want to go.

Once you have successfully turned yourself around and are once again moving toward your dreams with more appropriate thoughts, repeat the process. Choose a thought that feels a little better. Relish it, envision it, and pause to take notice of how you feel now. Better? If so, take another small step in the same direction. Choose another related thought that keeps you moving in your chosen direction, and continue to notice how you feel. (See previous article, “The Law of Attraction.”)

“You can drive yourself down the rocky back roads,
Bouncin’ up and down with the bumps.
Feed yourself garbage and your life is drivin’ you,
Spinnin’ wheels, down in the dumps.

Or you can live your life down the middle of the road,
Help yourself, by bein’ selective.
And live your life like a jambourie,
Be cause, it’s more effective.

Celebrate,
Celebrate Life,
Celebrate Being Alive”
- from the song, “Celebrate Life” by Tupelo and Janey Kenyon (1983)

The Drama Drops Away When You Want It To

As you make a habit of this mindful state of becoming increasingly aware of your thoughts and the feelings they spawn, life becomes an ever-more joyous journey of deliberate creation. Drama drops away naturally.

What was once considered drama that snowballed out of control becomes simply examples of the contrasts of life to help you sharpen your preferences and shape your desires. Drama never spirals out of control again because you understand that you do have control. You control it by being mindful about choosing your thoughts and mental images deliberately to move you in the direction of your dreams. Your feelings tell you on a moment-to-moment basis if you are on track or not. If not, change your thoughts to change your feelings to change your life.

Some people catch on to this simple manifestation formula quicker than others. I have been aware of it for many years, but still occasionally forget and allow my thoughts to take me in the wrong direction, even though my feelings are offering obvious clues I’m on the wrong track. With practice, I have got better and better at it so the time that elapses before I catch on about my stinkin’ thinkin’ is smaller and smaller. There is always room for improvement if that is your intent.

Your Intent is the First Step To the Life of Your Dreams

It all begins with intent. If it is your choice to continually improve at deliberate manifestation, you are already well on your way. Your example will help to inspire others to open their minds to new ways of life, beyond drama. Your life will continue to unfold in pleasing ways, and your contributions to others add to your feeling of satisfaction, purpose and joy.

While reading, did you choose to hear the relaxing instrumental music linked at the beginning of this article? To learn more about it, click here.

Did you get something good from this article? You can also enjoy the feeling of giving. Click here to leave a donation for Tupelo. Thank you.

Listen FREE to the songs below . . . chosen to enhance the ideas in this article.

Be Kind
Your example and the kindness shown to others can have a rippling affect that goes on and on.
^{http://www.somemusicmatters.com/DescHB.html#Anchor9}

Celebrate Life
Create your own personal celebration of life by your choices, rather than allowing life to be something that merely happens to you, or around you.
^{http://www.somemusicmatters.com/DescHB.html#Anchor2}

Trash Our Treasures
People seem to have a history of awarding seemingly insignificant details with places of prominence in our lives, while ignoring or even destroying the most important aspects.
^{http://www.somemusicmatters.com/DescX.html#Anchor2}

Low Maintenance Relationship
Life seems to be all about relationships . . . to our friends, families, lovers, and to our creator. There’s always room for improvement.
^{http://www.somemusicmatters.com/DescX.html#Anchor7}

Songs by Tupelo

Good Listener Secrets - Listen with Your Heart
When someone is talking to you, do you hear with your ears, monitor with your mind, or listen with your heart? Invest a few minutes thinking about the importance of listening well - a deliberate conscious act - and watch your relationships grow to a new level of closeness and understanding.

Choose the Companionship of Positive People Who Inspire You
If the people you spend the most time with are inspiring, supportive, encouraging, and they demonstrate qualities you want to emulate - great, you are on the right track. If not, it’s up to you to do something about it. Life is too short to put up with other people’s pity parties, bitch-and-moan marathons, and oh-woe-is-me clubs.

Make Assumptions Obsolete by Communicating
We assume because we don’t know. We don’t know because we don’t ask. We don’t ask because we act as if we already know. Or, we don’t want to appear stupid. So we make an assumption. Then we forget it is merely something we made up, and we behave as if it’s a fact. When the facts are known, it would never occur to us to assume. The solution is clear communication. When we know the truth, assumptions are forever unnecessary.

Don’t Take it Personally
Why do people criticize? It’s not about you - it’s about them. When you get criticized, here’s what to do with it - don’t take it personally. Praise can be just as harmful (but sneakier) - don’t take it personally. If you’re a habitual critic, here’s how to stop . . . but don’t take it personally.

Meaningful Spiritual Relationships - Namaste Matters
Behind the faces, beyond the reach of social conditioning, deeper than individual egos, we are identical. We are presence, consciousness, pure knowingness - the awareness of “I am.” We are life itself. Celebrate life with this insight on how to take your personal relationships to a whole new level.

Communication - Friend or Foe
Our communication skills can make or break us. This article includes some refreshing insights on communication from an unusual vantage point. Celebrate life with newfound attitudes about the art and science of communication.

10 Ways to Grow a Relationship of Mutual Personal Development
Even though the way of discovery and personal growth is a one-lane road, it sure is nice to be able to share stretches of it with someone else. With what kind of person could you share something so profound? If having this kind of life partner is important to you, have you asked yourself, “How can I be that kind of person?

Articles by Tupelo

Why wait for inspiration to strike?

Be proactive, and go get it.

Better yet, this newsletter brings it to you.

"Inspired on Purpose" newsletter by Tupelo Kenyon contains articles, reviews and resources to supercharge your personal development, inspiration, productivity, abundance and joy.

FREE e-book
Instant download - when you subscribe.

Personal Development Supercharger
101 Tips and Techniques
by Tupelo Kenyon

It’s FREE. Subscribe now.
Enter name and email address below:

Privacy policy: Your email address is secure. I will not sell, rent or trade your information to anyone for any reason. Period. - Tupelo Kenyon

Consciously Programming Your Subconscious Mind Before Sleep

Tupelo — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 12:26:54 +0000

For instrumental music while reading, choose: hi-fi (broadband) or low-fi.

We are all continuously feeding our minds with the words we read, the audio we hear, and the images we see on the screen. The ideas we expose our minds to immediately before going to sleep are powerful. They sink deep into our subconscious mind as we ease into the alpha state of consciousness, as part of the sleep cycle. Here, the subconscious mind reviews the ideas over and over, not because they are the most important, but simply because they were the most recent.

We all experience this phenomenon regularly. Pause and think about the last time you woke up feeling like you’d been dreaming all night about whatever your attention was upon before sleeping – a movie, a TV show, an article. Since it’s easy to recognize this principle in action, how can we use it deliberately to enhance our personal development?

Programming the Subconscious Unconsciously

To drive home the point, here are some ways people are affected in a negative way by this powerful pre-sleep input when performed in a random, unconscious manner. If you watch a violent horror movie right before going to bed, chances are your dreams will be full of scary images and fearful situations. This is how you set yourself up for nightmares.

Watch a soap opera or read a pulp-fiction “romance” novel before bed and, chances are, your dreams will be full of emotional confrontations. This is how you set yourself up for problems in your relationships.

Drop off to sleep while the TV is on a news channel and you are effectively programming your subconscious mind with ideas and images of violence, corruption, injustice, and an endless barrage of man’s inhumanity to man. In other words, the very worst examples of life on planet earth. This is how you set yourself up for a negative attitude that percolates into all areas of your life.

Who would do this deliberately? Nobody in their right mind. But, it’s done daily by millions of people all over the world non-deliberately, unconsciously, and unaware.

Justifying Unawareness

In countless ways, these actions are justified: “Oh, it’s just a harmless fantasy. Everyone knows horror movies aren’t real.” (Surprise, your subconscious mind doesn’t know that it’s not real. It processes the information just as if it were completely factual. Your muscles twitch, your heartbeat races, your respiration quickens in a bad dream, just as in real life.)

Here’s another common justification for unconscious, non-deliberate mind-feeding: “Oh, that soap opera or romance novel is just fiction. It’s harmless and has nothing to do with real life.” (Surprise, oh yes it does! If you saturate your mind with those attitudes – especially right before sleeping – they will begin to seep into your day-to-day life and contribute to the creation of similar interpersonal scenarios in your experience.)

“Oh, I’m not really listening to the TV. I just leave it on while I’m falling asleep to provide some background noise.” (Surprise, you don’t have ear-lids. You can close your eyes, but the sound goes deep inside as you drop off to sleep, when your mind is the most receptive – the most fertile ground for germinating new ideas.)

Accidental Hypnosis

Think of hypnosis and how susceptible the mind is to suggestions in the hypnotic state characterized by drowsiness on the cusp between sleep and wakefulness. This light, hypnotic state is a similar state of consciousness to the time when you are falling asleep. As the brain wave activity diminishes as it approaches the alpha state, the mind is open, fertile and receptive to whatever is presented. If you make a habit of presenting your mind with the atrocities graphically depicted daily on the evening news, are those really the seeds you want to nurture into such a fertile garden of your mind in such an optimum time for germination?

Bedtime Story

The tradition of a bedtime story for the young ones is another good example of this principle in action. What kind of parent would tuck in their young, wide-eyed child and read them a cozy story about the Texas Chainsaw Massacre? Any conscientious parent with half a brain and even a little heart instinctively knows to find stories that help instill helpful principles like honesty, helpfulness, honor, truth, self-confidence, teamwork and so on.

Why is it that this common-sense approach so often gets lost as we “mature” into adulthood? We know that these pre-sleep moments are important in the early development of the child. The altruistic principles illustrated in the best bedtime stories impact their fertile subconscious minds and contribute to the character and personality of the child.

This principle of feeding the mind deliberately does not stop at an arbitrary age of 9 or 13 or 45 or 78. The bedtime stories we continue to feed ourselves continue to impact our subconscious minds in powerful ways. They continue to contribute to who we are, how we view the world, and the quality of experiences we attract.

Beneficial Bedtime Stories – Deliberately

If we really understood and therefore believed that our mental diet makes a difference in the quality of our lives, what would we do about it? First, we would be conscious and aware of the information we provide for our subconscious mind all the time, but especially during the hour or so before going to sleep. We would deliberately put this principle to work for us instead of allowing it to work against us. Before bed, we would listen to positive, uplifting music with lyrics that accentuate the positive. Or, we would read inspiring words from books that resonate with us. Carefully chosen fiction would also be a good choice if the themes fire the imagination in positive ways. Short or medium length articles like the ones on this website offer productive, inspiring food for thought that offer healthy nutrition for the subconscious mind as you drop off to sleep. Try reading one article per day, just before bed. Another helpful technique is to listen to an audio recording or watch a video on self-help, personal development topics. (For a list of recommended, quality materials with my short reviews, click here.)

Mental Poison

Avoid the news like poison before bedtime. If you still feel the need to inundate yourself with the “best” of the planet’s bad news in the name of “staying informed,” do it earlier in the day. Then you have a chance to recover from it before you sleep.

“For most folks, no news is good news; for the press, good news is not news.” - Gloria Borger

More and more people are getting their news through their computers so they have more control on the kind of stories they get. Networks and news conglomerates have their own agendas that determine which stories they choose to spoon feed, and you can bet that your best interests are not at the top of their list.

You Call That Entertainment?

Pick and choose your entertainment more deliberately, especially right before bedtime. After decades of violence in the name of entertainment, we have become desensitized to just how perverse, hideous, and self-destructive it really is. We have been brain-washed into thinking nothing unusual about seeing dozens of acts of violence and murder daily in the guise of wholesome entertainment. Is it any wonder there is so much violence in our world when we consider it normal, average and healthy fare for entertainment?

“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” - Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992)

Your Personal Daily Review

Knowing the importance of the hour or so before sleep, how else could you put it to use for maximum efficiency? It’s the perfect time for meditation, contemplation, or quiet reflection of your day. Review the day’s events in your imagination and notice the instances when you could have done better. Whatever moments don’t feel good, ask yourself what would have been a better approach on your part. Visualize how you would like it to go next time. See it clearly. Act it out in your mind’s eye. As you drift off to sleep, your subconscious mind will accept these most recent, vivid images as truth. When similar situations come up in the future, you will handle them in a manner more in alignment with your deliberate choosing.

Do It Differently

Just because so many people seem to be unaware of the importance of feeding the mind deliberately is no excuse for you. You know better. Normal is not good enough. Average is practically an insult. The masses are well-duped by the media and continue to let poison pass by the gatekeeper to their minds. Many gatekeepers seem to be permanently out-to-lunch, retired, or simply incompetent due to lack of practice. For a life of excellence, you must be the proactive, deliberate, aware, and conscious gatekeeper and feed your mind on purpose. Protect and nourish your subconscious mind as if it were the key to living the very best version of your ideal life. Feed your mind the good stuff, especially right before bedtime, and enjoy . . . sweet dreams.

While reading, did you choose to hear the relaxing instrumental music linked at the beginning of this article? To learn more about it, click here.

Did you get something good from this article? You can also enjoy the feeling of giving. Click here to leave a donation for Tupelo. Thank you.

Listen FREE to the songs below . . . chosen to enhance the ideas in this article.

Who is the Watcher
Explores the silent witness within and the idea that life occurs in this present moment. Always.
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No, Yes!
Examines the folly of continually holding conflicting thoughts at the same time. Yes I can. No I can’t. I want that. But do I really deserve it? Around and around it goes.
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Songs by Tupelo

The Trouble with TV
Does TV enhance our life experience or get in the way of living our lives? Celebrate life with this refreshing perspective on the boob tube.

Benefits of Music for Personal Development
All music is not created equally. This article takes a look behind the scenes to catch a glimpse of how the intent of the composer translates to the feeling evoked in the listeners. Many links are included to streaming mp3s. Celebrate life through music!

Spiritually Thriving Through Choice
As we go through the motions of life, eventually it becomes apparent that what we have to do to get by needs to be balanced with our deep longing to thrive spiritually. Our activities need to be undertaken consciously. Our choices need to be made deliberately - with full awareness of the potential consequences as well as the potential rewards.

Articles by Tupelo

Why wait for inspiration to strike?

Be proactive, and go get it.

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"Inspired on Purpose" newsletter by Tupelo Kenyon contains articles, reviews and resources to supercharge your personal development, inspiration, productivity, abundance and joy.

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Personal Development Supercharger
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Balancing Desire with Contentment

Tupelo — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 12:00:03 +0000

For instrumental music while reading, choose: hi-fi (broadband) or low-fi.

It’s a fine line we walk between wanting more and feeling satisfied with what we have. Desire is unavoidable – it comes with the territory. Our experience helps us realize what we prefer and what we’d rather avoid. The natural result of this process is desire – desire for more of whatever we prefer.

Perhaps our desire for more is the very same urge to expand and grow that’s in all life. The tiny acorn is wired to burst forth into a mighty oak tree. It doesn’t worry or care if this process is good, bad or indifferent – it’s just the way things are. Could this thing we feel called desire be the same force that keeps the entire universe growing, expanding and becoming more?

We humans are unique (as far as we know) because we experience this irresistible urge for growth consciously. Other species grow, develop and change instinctually, but we do it deliberately, consciously, on purpose.

Universal Sense Organs

Could it be that the universe itself benefits from our individual experiences with desire and the resulting manifestation? We provide the eyes and ears to help the entire cosmos know itself a little bit better, in all its glorious, ever-expanding diversity. In the same way, perhaps our contribution provides “All That Is” with experiences in desire and the deliberate manifestations that result from these primal urges.

Desire Used to Be Considered Negative

There are some ancient, but still popular teachings that say desire is something to be ignored or denied – subjugated. Perhaps in other times, in other cultures, that idea made sense because of rampant poverty and huge populations. Or, maybe the ruling class found it easier to control the masses if they could be “trained” to want nothing. The idea of abundance was worlds away from the day-to-day experience of the average person living in such a culture.

Rampant Consumerism

There are still people living with these very limiting ideas, of course, but this day and age is different. Today, many people have made their reality the opposite extreme. They want everything and they want it right now. Their whole life is about getting more stuff and guarding the stuff they’ve already got.

“Realize that true happiness lies within you. Waste no time and effort searching for peace and contentment and joy in the world outside. Remember that there is no happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving. Reach out. Share. Smile. Hug. Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.” - Og Mandino

What’s the Real Cost

Abundance consciousness is a healthy, empowering state of mind, but when it is undisciplined and out of control, the question presents itself: Abundance at what cost?

So many people seem willing to trade it all for abundance (or their current concept of abundance). In the course of a lifetime, they trade their health, their family, their friends, often even their integrity for that fleeting carrot in the sky – wealth. To me that’s not a very smart trade.

“Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.” - Buddha (563?-483? BC)

All the stuff eventually rusts, corrodes, gets eaten by bugs and turns to dust anyway. So again, the question is: All this frenzied activity about getting more and more . . . at what cost? If contentment and satisfaction are never experienced due to the relentless pursuit of “more,” isn’t that an unreasonably high price to pay?

“We may pass violets looking for roses. We may pass contentment looking for victory.” - Bern Williams

Peace from Balance

So, the trick is to find the balance. There’s a middle ground to be found where deep feelings of contentment and satisfaction are spiced with the delicious excitement of something more on the horizon.

A natural result of contentment is a warm feeling of appreciation – gratitude for all that has already been manifested. Satisfaction plus gratitude plus excited expectation is a good recipe for successfully launching new desires. From this balanced state, the principles of creative manifestation are more efficiently utilized.

From this easy-going state of balance, it’s easier to keep your attention focused on what you want to attract, rather than all the things you want to avoid.

“When we create something, we always create it first in a thought form. If we are basically positive in attitude, expecting and envisioning pleasure, satisfaction and happiness, we will attract and create people, situations, and events which conform to our positive expectations.” - Shakti Gawain (b. 1948)

To Want – Deeper Meanings

The opposite state of mind is one of desperate neediness. In this impoverished mental attitude, your attention is riveted tightly to the lack of whatever you desire. From that state you “want” – notice the other meaning Webster’s attributes to the word want: “Deficiency, need, lack, scarcity. To want is to be without that which contributes to comfort or is desired . . . What we ‘want’ would meet artificial desires, what we ‘need’ would satisfy real requirements.”

The Bottom Line of a Succesful Life

So what do we need? The bottom line seems to be that we need happiness, which includes a measure of contentment. To really relax into the moment and feel genuine, deep satisfaction, desires must be under control. It’s useless to deny them or dislike them. But it does seem healthy to keep them balanced with the other profoundly important things in life – happiness, personal satisfaction and contentment.

“Unless each day can be looked back upon by an individual as one in which he has had some fun, some joy, some real satisfaction, that day is a loss.” - Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) - 34th US President

Today, as I was walking around our house, I really appreciated it. It’s cozy, warm and homey. Sure, a bigger house would be fun, but for right now, I feel grateful, content and satisfied with what we have. These same feelings apply to our recording studio, art studio, and vehicles. I feel genuinely satisfied and content, but still okay with the idea of something bigger and better (more) on the horizon, already heading our way.

Feeling Out Loud

If feelings could talk, this feeling I am enjoying would sound something like this: I love my life and all the “stuff” that we have manifested so far. I am grateful, satisfied and content with all of it. At the same time, I feel an exciting tingle of expectation for all the bigger and better “stuff” and experiences that are already on the way as a result of the universe noticing what we prefer and what we choose to avoid. Yes, universe – more of this and this and this please – it all feels so good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

While reading, did you choose to hear the relaxing instrumental music linked at the beginning of this article? To learn more about it, click here.

Did you get something good from this article? You can also enjoy the feeling of giving. Click here to leave a donation for Tupelo. Thank you.

Listen FREE to the songs below . . . chosen to enhance the ideas in this article.

Stuff, Stuff, Stuff, Stuff, Stuff
About all the stuff you’ve been keeping that’s not good enough to actually use, but it’s way too good to throw away.
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May You Have Joy
Have you ever felt a warm appreciation for someone in your life, and just wanted to wish them well?
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Songs by Tupelo

The Dilemma of Desire
What is desire? Where does it come from? Why do we have it? Does it serve us in a positive way, or does it distract us and keep us perpetually in discontent? This article sheds some light on these important questions so that each of us can find our own answers.

The Subtle Side of Manifestation
This in-depth, 4-part article explores the principles and laws that deliver what we desire. Celebrate life through the awareness that you have control of your future.

Goal Setting or Let Go and Let God
There are two approaches people use to manifest their desires. Some set goals. Others surrender and presume the universe is conspiring to deliver to them their every desire without strain, in its own way and in its own time. Which way is better? Can these two methods be used together?

Action and Satisfaction
A satisfying life includes time for doing balanced by time for being , embracing and celebrating all aspects of life. Being, doing, having . . . all these things are important ingredients of our package of life experience. Denying any aspect of it only serves to diminish our joy of living a full, inspired, and satisfying life.

Manifestation Fill-In-the-Blank Formula
Here’s a simple technique you can adapt to your own style. First, I’ll give you the formula as I currently use it. Next, I’ll discuss each word so you’ll see how it has evolved into its present state. Then, I’ll add some supporting information to provide you with a ready-to-go affirmation for your own experimentation. This manifestation technique is built around one simple sentence . . .

Articles by Tupelo

Why wait for inspiration to strike?

Be proactive, and go get it.

Better yet, this newsletter brings it to you.

"Inspired on Purpose" newsletter by Tupelo Kenyon contains articles, reviews and resources to supercharge your personal development, inspiration, productivity, abundance and joy.

FREE e-book
Instant download - when you subscribe.

Personal Development Supercharger
101 Tips and Techniques
by Tupelo Kenyon

It’s FREE. Subscribe now.
Enter name and email address below:

Privacy policy: Your email address is secure. I will not sell, rent or trade your information to anyone for any reason. Period. - Tupelo Kenyon