Simply MY Best – An Artists Journey To Life: Day 826

For a long time I wanted to be ‘The Best’, and this programming was formed quite young. I wanted to be the best at hockey, I wanted to be the best at art, I wanted to be the best.

When I look at this idea now of ‘being the best’ it does make sense in that this kind of programming was all around me, the programing of competition, of getting the top marks, of being seen as a winner, of being someone talented and special, of comparing yourself to others a way to determine your standing in life.

 

I find this programming still follows me around, as I walk the process of changing these parts of myself that I see do not serve me or others or are really contributing to creating the best self I can be or contributing in fact to Life on Earth for everyone and everything.

 

The other day I was scrolling through Instagram and saw some artwork by someone who I had gone to art school with and I immediately reacted and became uncomfortable within myself. In looking at the reaction closer I could identify an anxiety as well various points of fear and competition and comparison, and I identified this ‘Wanting to be The Best’ programming basically in full application.

 

Even though I am aware that this programming doesn’t serve me, I still have moments where I am in fact living/existing as this programming which is why I reacted in that moment, and the reaction was enough to realize that this experience is NOT something that was a benefit or support me at all.

 

So I did some writing and self introspection and I realized that I was wanting to be ‘THE’ Best instead of being ‘MY’ Best.

 

When I am My Best and striving to be My Best, the point of comparison is removed because being MY Best isn’t dependent on others. Just as them being Their Best is does not take away from or devalue what I am doing.

 

When I want to be THE Best, I compare myself to others and am constantly worried about what others are doing or how good they are at what they are doing, I get side tracked and end up often following what others are doing and even chasing them trying to catch up to those I perceive are ahead of me and I end up in a constant experience of anxiety while I am engaging in this competition to be THE Best. Within this the most important point of all gets lost in all the anxiety and fear of being left behind or not being good enough. The point that is lost or missing is ME.

 

It’s like my total focus is out there, looking at what everyone else is doing.

 

How are they doing it

That looks cool, I wish I was doing that

They are so far ahead of me

I could do better

Their not very good

I am way ahead

I suck

They make it look so easy

Maybe I should try that or this or that or that or that… = Anxiety.

 

Being MY Best is where I look at ME, and I look at Who I am and what suits me and what my strengths and weaknesses are and where I can position myself or express myself in a way that is supporting and getting the most out of the unique attributes of ME, and this cannot be determined by comparing or trying to copy or doing a better job of what others are doing or how they live.

Being MY Best is a truly original expression so to speak, that ultimately only I can do/live.

 

Being MY Best requires me to be Self Honest, and honor myself and where I am in my life and look at how I can be My Best.

 

What I also noticed is that when I am looking at how to be MY Best, I am suddenly looking at and considering way more parts and aspects of myself where to be THE Best I become isolated and driven more by the singular dimension of Fear, and so miss the many multitudes of Self.

 

Using simple math, I can understand how being MY Best would lead to a more enriching experience as I am now considering and looking at various dimensions of myself instead of being driven prominently by just one dimension (Fear) while attempting to be The Best.

 

So at the moment I am busy exploring what it means to be and Live MY Best and what this means to me and what this would look like. I may not be ‘The’ best at anything, but it is irrelevant if I am Living to my utmost potential and getting the most out of myself while Living MY Best.

 

https://eqafe.com/ – Every Question Answered for Everyone

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“The Physical is God” A Guiding Principle. – An Artists Journey to Life: Day 825

My wife and I recently began walking a ‘Living Words’ process where every couple nights we pick a word from our word web as a word to emphasize, develop, create, and live into our partnership/agreement as well as our lives individually. When we first started our relationship together we create a word web of all the words we wanted to live in our agreement. So we will often refer back to this map of words to chose from.

The other night the word “Principles” came up and at first it was a bit foreign aside from the usual understanding I have of the word. And so I sat with the word for a few days and brought it up in discussion and there really wasn’t much coming up.

However the other night I was talking to Kristina and I saw an interesting dimension of how I actually live this word ‘Principle’ in my life, even though I didn’t necessarily initially see this, that my entire life and living is actually governed by ‘Principles’ and now as I write this I can see that I either give myself a ‘Principle’ to walk and live by or I just follow the already pre-programmed principles that I have adopted from family structure, societal structure, ext.

So here are some of the Principles that I actually see I am Living in my day to day life that is having an impact on who I am and how I live. Some principles I have I see I haven’t substantiated to much with my living where others are more determining myself and my life a lot more.

One of my primary Principles is the principle of

“The Physical is God”

Its actually funny because I didn’t realize or consider that this phrase within me of “The Physical is God” was/is actually a principle I live by. The statement “The Physical is God” is kind of a placeholder statement or prompt I give myself in moments where I go about living this principle. So let me explain how this statement within me is actually a principle that I have been utilizing for years and live by virtually daily as a guiding force in who I am and how live.

“The Physical is God” refers to my understanding of what ‘The Physical’ is and how I can utilize this to support me in my life in particular where I make the distinction between ‘My Mind’ and the chaos that sometimes ensues in there, and the grounded, solid, stable construction and nature of ‘The Physical’

For me “The Physical” is my saving grace, it is that extended hand that is always there if I take it, that I can utilize as a point of support to stabilize and ground myself when things get rough, because when things get rough, when the seas are stormy within me, the physical is always constant, grounded, stable, and here, and so in situations like this when “things are rough” or I am in some kind of emotional state, whether it be depression, anger, frustration, despair, wanting to be right, even heightened excitement, I know within myself that I can, and often do utilize “The Physical” as a way to ground myself, to pull myself out of the the stormy waters, out of my ego, out of my possession, out of my subjective opinion, or veiled views, or judgements,  and onto some solid ground so I can get my footing, stand back up, breath, and continue on. For me, the physical is a kind of simplicity, it is what it is, the mind complicates things, the physical is an opportunity to just drop everything and start from simplicity.  I do this by going for a walk, or playing with the dog, or even for me I find when I go to work and carve my stone sculptures, it is a very physical process as I am working with my hands, it really supports me to get grounded and into my body and out of my head. I will also utilize the tool of breathing and as I inhale I bring my awareness to my physical body and focus on my body, and my breathing. And just drop everything else! Everything mental.

And this process of grounding myself in the physical is happening frequently and also where generally I have that orientation towards the physical as a point I understand within myself as “where I want to be”

So I do not dwell in the mind too long.

So in a way the physical is my saving grace. The Physical is God, where for me, when in doubt, even when things just seem chaotic and out of hand, I can always rely on that baseline of supporting myself to ‘get into the physical’

So I was for many years now living this principle of “The Physical is God” but didn’t necessarily realize I was or realized how much this principle has become a part of my life and living and is determining what my life and self look like right now.

 

Other principles with which I live by, act, make decisions are,

The Principle of Doing What is Best for ALL

The Principle of Standing in the shoes of another

The Principle of Self Forgiveness

The Principle of Taking Self Responsibility

The Principle of Equality (All life/plant/animal/human/bacteria/molecule ect. Are equal)

The Principle of Utmost Potential

I realize there are just statements and as statements may be a bit abstract though behind each one of these principles/statements there is actually a larger context and application that I express within myself and life on a regular basis as a means to navigate myself and this reality. I am sure I could do a blog on each one. But for now there is a bit of an overview of the insight I had into how I exist as and live by Principles in my life.

 

https://eqafe.com/

The Tools That have Given me Stability and Direction in My Life – An Artists Journey To Life: Day 824

 

Here I thought I would share some of the principles and tools that have become second nature for me, though that I don’t see or know if many people really understand when it comes to ones ‘relationship’ with their Life and the people around them. This has served me quite well in navigating my personal as well as my business or workplace relationships as well as all of the various relationships that make up My Life.

First and foremost, what I have found to be paramount support is my understanding of ‘What a Reaction is’

This could commonly be referred to as a Judgement.

What I have found is that some judgements are ‘minor’ in that you almost don’t notice them and you forget about them almost as fast as they came up. Though that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value in helping you understand who you are and where you are in your life in terms of how you are viewing yourself and others and life in general which could be very balanced and clear or that could be clouded with judgements, opinions, animosity, self judgement, regret, anger, fear, jealousy, insecurity, ect.

This ties into another critical element when it comes to identifying ‘What a Reaction is’ and then from there utilizing that reaction as something to empower yourself and others instead of diminishing yourself and others. So this next critical point is the point of Emotions and Feelings or ENERGY.

I find for me mostly that ‘reactions’ are usually easier seen when it is Negative, because its like it has more of a lasting impact on my experience.

Often negative reactions come up in relation to someone else.

Like “he or she is so inconsiderate”

Or

“he or she is so mean and such a bully”

Or

“he or she never listens”

Or even

“he or she is so smart, I will never be as good as them, I am useless”

So there is a varity when it comes to the nature and type and kind of reaction you are having.

To really start the process of getting to know this I would recommend the DESTENI I PROCESS LITE which is a free course about the fundamentals of what I am taking about here.

So this initial step is important to ‘Understand What a Reaction Is’ because once you do this and are able to do this on a very minute level, you can begin ‘working with’ these reactions instead of ‘just having’ these reactions, and then you can begin supporting yourself to become someone who Empowers themselves and others instead of Disempowering themselves and others.

How could anyone ever be empowering themselves through using judgements on which to base their actions and communications rather than for instance understanding and being deliberately directive to support yourself and another. The interesting thing, is that people don’t even know or realize how much their actions and communication is in fact based on judgement or reaction, because they do not notice when such judgements/reactions are happening. They have automated themselves in such a way where Judgements and reactions are just ‘normal experiences’ go unnoticed.

I have had situations where I have went into conflict towards others in my work place and then start ignoring them or not wanting anything to do with them, even through they were in my environment, then my behavior and decisions around and towards them were based in this ‘reaction/judgement’ I was having within myself instead of where for instance I could understand the judgment/reaction within myself and why I was having it and then taking responsibility for it and essentially releasing myself and also the other person from my “State of Reaction” so that when they were in my environment I would be open and embracing to them instead of ignoring/avoiding them or not wanting anything to do with them.

 

So what I do, is that when I identify a reaction coming up within me and I notice the reaction is STRONG (though this can be applied to any reaction of varying potency) I will then take a moment to look at the reaction based on a couple principles. One is ‘TAKING ALL POINTS BACK TO SELF’ and Secondy is the Principle of ‘LIVING WHAT IS BEST FOR ALL’ as a baseline of realizing that my interaction with any and all beings should be in a way where I am nurturing the BEST in myself and the BEST in them, understanding that we are all here together as ONE BODY on ONE EARTH in ONE EXISTENCE, each simply representing a different expression but ultimately EQUAL and part of the same source.

 

So here firstly one must become adept at identifying reactions. And then also reflecting, introspecting, or taking responsibility for the reaction and ‘bringing the point back to self’ and not just allowing one to exist in a way where “its them”, “Its their fault”, “They are doing this or that and this is the cause of my reaction”….You know, they might be the cause, as a trigger, but ultimately YOU ARE THE SOURCE, and so that is where you have to introspect to understand why YOU are reacting within yourself.

So once the reaction is identified then from here you BRING THE POINT BACK TO SELF, even if that means taking a moment to step away from the situation to calm yourself and allow yourself the time to reflect and introspect and bring the point back to yourself and ask yourself why you are reacting. I will often use the guideline of “What I am reacting to about them is actually the point I am dealing with inside myself that I have to look at” and so I use that as a starting point to begin introspecting about the reaction.

I will often do this with WRITING. Where I can kind of slow things down a bit and really open up the point so as to understand the nature of my reaction and to draw the reaction I had towards or in relation to something or someone else back to a sourcepoint within myself so that when I

So for me, my rule of thumb, is that if I have a reaction towards someone or something in my life, it is actually an indication of something or somewhere within ME where I can correct some behavior or purpose or stance or give myself a new direction to Support Myself in my Living Expression.

Its ALL about SELF.

So here is a very off-the-cuff explanation view of how I go about processing my reality in a way to Empower Myself and Others instead of Living Out a state of Disempowerment.

For more information on some of the tools and principles I use for this check out Eqafe where there are tons of free recordings giving much more in depth descriptions of these tools and principles and how to implement them into your daily life to support yourself to become the Self you would actually want to be!

Living A Balanced Day – An Artists Journey To Life: Day 823

Today on my drive to work I began opening up the word “weak”.

I have noticed now for a couple weeks or even longer that there has been this background noise experience within myself as a form of weakness and tiredness when it comes to my general experience of myself.

One dimension of this that I am seeing here is that I was spreading myself thin and not living a more balanced life when it comes to the activities in my life.

For the past few months I have been pushing 2 different expressions when it comes to my art. This past weekend this process came to a head where I essentially decided to rather than continue focusing so much on both, to now just more focus on one.

An interesting side affect of this is this blog. Because normally when I would get home from my day doing one art expression, I would begin preparing for and going into the other art expression.

And so most of my focus was on doing art and I wouldn’t really get to doing much of anything else like for instance taking an evening and sitting down with myself and writing a blog.

What I am seeing is that within pursuing two art expressions, that I created within myself a form of anxiety as a ‘chasing experience’ in that I was feeling like I wasn’t moving both points effectively and so often felt incomplete at the end of each day.

Its interesting through as I am only seeing this now because I have noticed yesterday and today when I got home from a day of work in the carving studio that I experience myself as much more calm where before I would just feel the urgency to jump into my second art expression and so ended up creating a rushed and anxious experience within myself and as I am writing this I am also seeing how this would contribute to that tired/weak experience I referenced at the beginning of this blog.

This brings up an interesting question about balance and how to create balance in ones life through the activities one does each day

Because yes, I have been productive in recent months while I was pushing to do both art expressions, however was this ‘productivity’ actually a compromise of self and creating more havoc in myself and life than contributing to it.

So here I can redefine the word ‘Productivity’ to include a kind of balance of activities where I give to myself all that I need, and not just try and push one point all the time as much as possible while neglecting other aspects of myself and my life because ultimately one ends up tired, stressed, and anxious like I found myself.

To be productive may not mean just doing one thing all the time full-out as much as possible, but rather should include Balance, like eating a balanced meal where the body requires a balanced intake of different foods to get the sustenance it requires.

So I am now looking at Productivity in this way to include balance (Like a balanced meal) and to create that point of completion where one actually feels fulfilled and complete, instead of how I was feeling at the end of each day which was “I never did enough” and so felt stressed and anxious and actually incomplete.

So here ‘Productivity’ is not about getting a lot done but getting the right stuff done in a balanced way to cultivate that point of completion each day. Excess is not productive because then you do more of one thing and compromise other aspects of yourself and life.

So, is your day balanced and complete like a complete meal leading to fulfilment.

Or are you just all potatoes.

Links I follow

https://eqafe.com/ – Understanding Everything

https://www.patreon.com/earthhaven/overview – One World Solution

https://www.patreon.com/mindbodyinnerverse/overview – Understanding Self

 

 

 

Why do Some Projects Flow and Others Die. – An Artists Journey To Life: Day 822

My life at this stage centers very much around….I want to say ‘creating art’ but in fact it is centered around ‘making money’ where ‘creating art’ becomes more of a by-product of making money.

Recently I was met with some challenges regarding this expression of creating art where it so closely is intertwined with making money that it is sometimes difficult to see myself in the expression.

My recent challenge was in regards to my starting point within this process of creating and selling art where through the years I have tested various starting points within doing this with some being more based on a purer self expression where I created the art for me and put the idea of selling it as unimportant, to others based more deliberately on creating something that I think someone will buy and then also trying everything in between these two polarities and within these different starting points observing the feedback as monetary return as well as the intrinsic fulfillment I receive through creating art from various starting points where some art forms die out very quickly and gain almost no momentum where some flow more naturally and are able to be sustained longer.

So the question I am bringing here today.

Why do some expressions flow and grow and others do not?

Why do some ideas that I think are great never get anywhere are fizzle out where other ideas that I think are great flow more naturally and seem to ‘connect more’ with what is here and therefore are sustained more.

Sometimes it seems like the ideas I have or projects i start connect with my reality more effectively and so are sustained more easily where others struggle to connect anywhere and so then just die out.

I look at it like planting a seed.

Some seeds or small plants for whatever reasons just don’t ‘catch’ they just can’t seem to integrate with the environment around them and so they just die off before they even get going. Others are planted and ‘take-off’ where it seems to be the prefect relationship of seed/plant and surrounding environment where everything kind of lines up and the plant is nurtured into its full potential. I also suspect that the plant/seed itself plays a large role in its own survival where if it is defective in some way that this would affect its ability to do what it is supposed to do to connect with its environment and grow.

 

Opening the Gifts of Everyday Life – An Artists Journey To Life: Day 821

Opening Up A Moment.

What does it mean to open up a moment and get the most out of a moment?

This is the question and process I will be exploring in this blog to assist and support myself to substantiate a recent realization that came through with regards to how I can practice and refine my Living Expression so I can get the most out of myself, my life and what is here.

 

And this a Key – ‘What is HERE’

 

I find that I have the tendency to overlook what is right here as my life and to also Judge what is here where I judge my life and how it is, and what I have, my environment, my job, my relationships, my hobbies, my routines, ect. I judge everything seeing and thinking it is just not good enough, that ‘there is nothing there’ that it is boring, that its wrong, or broken, or not enough, and then I go through each day and it becomes a struggle in a way.

 

When I do this, I start looking ‘out there’ I start looking at and desiring something else, something more, something better.

 

My question is however…

 

When I do this, when I judge myself and my life in this way, am I preventing myself from seeing what is really here and so preventing myself from receiving the gifts of everyday normal life.

 

This has been a shift that I have been practicing of late.

 

Receiving the Gifts of Everyday Ordinary Life.

Essentially, extracting the fruit of the moment.

 

Though I have been practicing this process, I’d say at this stage that this entire process or concept is largely a Realization that I have still to actualize and Live and Express for real within my life, though I have began this process and have began settling down more in day to day life.

 

So lately I have been practicing Focusing on What is HERE in the moment to moment of my life. It makes a lot of sense to do this, and that instead of trying to go out and find a new life or new relationships, to actually FOCUS ON WHAT IS HERE as the Relationships, Points, and Processes that I am already engaged in and look at where I am not getting the most out of the Life that I have already created for myself.

 

And to dig into the moments more.

I see I can bee more engaged in the relationships that already are here but that I have kind of not tended to or participated in.

 

That is not to say that I shouldn’t go ahead and open up new relationships or points or processes. Its more a point of embracing what is already here to its Fullest instead of resisting it, judging it, and pushing it away.

 

So this has to do with realizing the Gifts of Everyday Life, where now I can redirect my focus to HERE and to getting the most out of each moment instead of thinking I need this great grand life or experience to have fulfillment, and to rather Extract from the Ordinary to create the Extraordinary from what is simply here.

 

For me I have had a tendency to expect the worst and to assume that I am messing everything up and that my life is falling apart because there is something not right or there is something I am doing wrong. So this is another point I see is important for me to adjust within myself and for me to rather Embrace the Successes in my life. This is something else I have been working with. I have been working on Celebrating my life more. And Honoring what I have created as my life at the moment. And practicing letting go of that paranoid anxiety that I sometimes allow to take me over to the point where I end up living in fear that everything is all wrong and will fall apart.

 

This Is also connected to Slowing Down which is the Words that I am utilizing to support in this process of stepping out of my anxious paranoia that I am somehow fucking everything up, and to rather embrace and acknowledging my Life and what I have created, allowing myself to See the Good also, instead of always just seeing and focusing on the bad.

 

So moving forward my direction will be to embrace what is here, embrace the moment, embrace the ordinary and to open up the moment, open up the ordinary and see what is here. This way I don’t have to go out and try and find some miraculous moment or over the top experience to experience some sense of fun and fulfillment within myself, but to rather work with what is already here in every moment which is actually quite cool because it takes the pressure off where I can now Look into the Ordinary and uncover the Gifts and Gems of Everyday Life and acknowledge and Explore this Potential that Everyday Life is a Treasure to Behold.

Using Self Forgiveness to See and Understand Me – An Artists Journey To Life: Day 820

Today when I woke up I experienced a resistance to getting out of bed mixed with a depression energy. I decided that I would speak some Self Forgiveness on my drive to work and see if I could open up within me what this experience was all about as it has become something of a familiar experience recently in the mornings, particularly when I work.

Initially when I started speaking Self Forgiveness I wasn’t really seeing anything specific and the Self Forgiveness seemed routine and the same ol’ points. However I decided to continue speaking the self forgiveness and after a few minutes I started hitting on points that were more specific and I began seeing and understanding my experience, or at least understanding the point that I was seeing in that moment about my relationship to my own inner experiences and my relationship to my work.

One of the main dimensions that I was seeing within me in relation to my work was that I was stuck in a kind of perpetual blame cycle towards my job where I had at some point decided that “it was my jobs fault” that “its my job that is causing and creating my experience”, “it was my jobs fault that my life is the way it is”

So within the Self Forgiveness I came to understand that I was making my job “more than” me, blaming my job for my current experience and so me not Standing as THEE point within myself as the Source of who I am and my experiences, rather I was in a point of allowing myself to say that it was my job that was the main thing, that “I” was doing everything right and nothing wrong and  that it was my job that was causing and creating my experience, and if my job would just change or be different, then I could go back to an experience that I would prefer, in other words, I was effectively disempowering myself.

So yes, totally giving my power and my responsibility away to this external point within my reality. So the speaking of Self Forgiveness really supported me to see what I have been accepting and allowing of myself in relation to this aspect of my job and I also saw that, how could I reap the fruits that I desire or want from my job if I am constantly blaming and judging and angry towards my job?

That is like having a child and wanting to have a deep, fun, and enjoyable relationship with the child but then raising that child through blaming it, judging it, criticizing it, being angry at it, ect… eventually you are going to create a resentment within the child towards you so in essence,

How can I create the success I am wanting with my job if I am in direct conflict with the very thing I am wanting to support this end. It’s a contradiction. So this was an interesting dynamic to see in the my relationship with my job and realizing here that It’s up to ME to establish a more effective supportive relationship with this particular part of my job that I was in conflict with, beginning with stopping that relationship where I was giving all my power away through blame, by saying “its your fault” so rather, now accepting, and realizing, I am the ONE, I am the SOURCE of my experience and I am the SOURCE of the relationship I create towards, with, as my job and so I must start working with my experience, like that experience I have of resistance and depression in the mornings that I seem to wake up with where for instance if I see this experience coming up again, I know that its connected to and based on the points of blame and abdication of my Self Responsibility in relation to my job and so can support myself to change this through for example, speaking some self forgiveness  and correct myself in those moments and Direct Myself to Stand as the  SOLE Creator of experience and so 100% responsible for them and my relationships that exist as me within my life.

So now going forwards after seeing this today, I am now going to practice identifying that ‘blame signature’ of this particular experience that has been coming through lately so that I can make sure to ALIGN myself according to Supporting myself and Standing as SELF RESPONSIBLE for Myself and my Experience and my Relationship to my Job so that  I can stop and change this experience and see how I can support myself to change my relationship to/within my job so that it is Supportive!

 

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