Adam Kayce

When your optimism clouds your ability to clearly see what’s happening, that’s called “wearing rose-colored glasses.” You know what wearing those glasses is going to do to you… the beliefs you bring to any situation are going to affect the way you show up, and cause you to see things differently from how they really are.

Rose-colored glasses are one thing. But what about when your glasses are a different color? Say, “sludge brown”, or “rotten-egg yellow”, or “toxic-waste green”?

Is that going to mess with your clarity? You betcha.

So there you are, hard at work, minding your own business, and frustration/procrastination/lack of motivation comes along. And once you realize that this feeling isn’t just going to blow over, you do your best to deal with it, whether you take a break, repeat affirmations, or do something to shift your state of being away from the negative and back towards the positive.

Self-healing techniques (for lack of a better term) are great for dealing with the immediate moment. And over time, they can change the way you live and work tremendously.

But this just wipes away a proverbial speck on your glasses, by handling the acute scenario. Important, yes, but different from addressing the chronic situation.

Cleaning the specks off of your glasses isn’t the same thing as taking the glasses off.

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I’m so curious when I see the kinds of businesses people are in. How did they get there? Why did they go into that line of work? Often times when I talk with someone for the first time, I make it a point to ask them how they got into whatever is they’re doing.

Of course, I know as well as the next person that for many of us, our careers are something we backed into, a step at a time, finding ourselves moving from decision to decision with guesswork and uncertainty, more than something we mapped out with precision at a younger age and then, blueprint in hand, just had to walk the steps we’d outlined.

For the most part, the “walking backwards into the future” method works just fine. Small steps lead you down long paths, just by reaching your toes backwards, feeling the next rock, and then shifting your weight onto it. You do this every day.

But what happens when you get to a big gap? To a place in your path where your toes can’t feel the next stone? A place where there is no easy answer, and looking backwards to your past doesn’t give you any help in knowing where to step next?
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One of the biggest takeaways I had from reading Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch years ago was a saying: “Fear holds close; love holds dear.”

This morning I had a epiphany around that statement, while my wife and I were talking about some of the opportunities opening up around my work. After sharing a few things with my wife, she said, “that sounds great… I’m just trying not to get attached to it.”

And that was when the Idea Fairy swooped down and bonked the side of my head with her magic wand.

I realized that I had no fear in that moment about any of the opportunities panning out or not. But why?

• Because I had been visualizing them as working out just fine.
• Because I was so focused on how good they were making me feel, there was no room for fear.
• And because there was no fear, I wasn’t attached at all.

What I realized was that if I’m attached to something, it was because I have fear about it not working out. My attachment comes from my fear.

Many spiritual traditions emphasize the importance of letting go of attachments. But letting go of attachment is letting go of fear, and that’s hard to do directly. But, it happens indirectly very easily when you move into a positive state, and focus on what you love.

For example:

One of the things I’m visualizing these days is a full enrollment in the upcoming Black Belt Business Intuition course. And most of the time, I don’t feel any sort of attachment about not filling it. But, now and again, the financial fears creep up, and -BOOM!- I start fretting about filling it, and get attached really quickly to the idea of it filling.

The good news is, it’s just as easy to get unattached. By focusing on the idea of it filling again, and how much fun it will be to teach a high-energy group, the fears and doubts fall away again.

So…

What are you attached to? Is there an outcome to a project that you’re gritting your teeth about? Are you dreading something not working out?

Trying to “let it go” is much easier said than done. Instead, focus on what it’ll feel like when it does work. See and feel the successful outcome, and breathe into the feeling of success for a few minutes.

And if you want to take it another step, ask yourself, “If this project/thingy does work out well, what is that going to give me?” Then, visualize that feeling. Fill yourself with those ideas and emotions. And then, as you return your mind to the present moment, see how you feel.

I’m curious… what did that do for you? Feel free to answer in the comments.

Image by _mystico_.

I’m stubborn, I’ll admit it. I’m so stubborn, not even the modern educational system could drive my love of learning out of me (although to be fair, I was lucky to have a handful of wonderful teachers over the years who fanned that flame, rather than dump water on it).

I’m always learning something — right now, I’ve got a stack of four books from the library on my desk, and two more in the living room, plus all the ChangeThis manifestos I still need to read, and the myriad of blogs in my Google Reader that are patiently awaiting my attention.

In fact, one of the aspects of the blogosphere that makes it really easy for me to spend way too much surfing is the amount of wonderful information and personal perspectives that are out there. New learnings are just a click away.

So, here’s my challenge to you, and my invitation:

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chuckp

The conversation that’s gotten started from “How Do You Orient To The Divine?” is one that I’m really, really enjoying. It’s the kind of discussion (one of them, at least) that I was hoping would happen when I started Monk at Work.

I’ve been touched by the sentiments shared, because it’s easy to see that people are really looking at their beliefs, and perhaps, questioning them. Personally, I’ve been questioning my beliefs for most of my life, and it has been a very fruitful debate.

One of the things I wrote was, “I’ve been both [a dualist and a monist],” The truth is, I could have easily added, “and, I’ve been neither — for most of my youth, I didn’t believe in anything.”

“- gasp – is it true? the monk was once an atheist?”

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cobalt123

This is a huge topic, I realize… one that I couldn’t do justice to in a single post (or a single lifetime, perhaps… but that won’t stop me from beginning the conversation, at least.

It seems to me that there are two primary ways that most people and most paths orient to the concept of God/Divine/Oneness/Spirit. It’s either inside of you, or outside of you.

The “outside of you” folks probably think of you and the Divine, the Divine being ‘out there’, and you trying to reach It. Your quest is to experience proximity to the Divine, and feel what it’s like to merge with the Divine, or, be in service to whatever It asks of you. (Because of the difference seen between man and Spirit, this is called, “dualism.”)

The “inside of you” folks probably think of the Divine in you, as ‘in here’, and you seeking to experience the fullness of It in you and through you. Your quest is to experience no absence of that Presence, to be filled 100% with the seamlessness of the experience of what is. (Because of the lack of difference seen between man and Spirit, this is called, “monism.”)

To the dualists, Divinity is something to be reached.
To the monists, Divinity is something to be realized.

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I love metaphors. Especially when they fit juuuust right.

In the conversation that’s following “What’s Your Attitude Environment?“, Carolyn Manning injected a great metaphor about marinades, to which Jean Browman wrote:

Actually, I don’t think of my “attitude environment” as a marinade, I think of it as a garden that needs regular tending…pulling the weeds, nurturing the flowers. If yours were a garden, what would be the weeds that need pulling? The flowers you’re trying to nurture? What tools do you use?

Well, I started to write a reply, and realized a post was in better order. So, picking up the garden metaphor and running with it…

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Think about this:

We in the music profession train young musicians with utmost care from early childhood, urging them to achieve extraordinary technical mastery and encouraging them to develop good practice habits and performance values. We support them to attend fine summer programs and travel abroad to gain firsthand experience of different cultures, and then, after all this, we throw them into a maelstrom of competition, survival, backbiting, subservience, and status seeking. And from this arena we expect them to perform the great works of the musical literature that call upon, among other things, warmth, nobility, playfulness, generosity, reverence, sensitivity, and love!

(excerpted from “The Art of Possibility” by Rosamund and Ben Zander)

And now, think about this: What kinds of thoughts fill your head as you work? How do you think about yourself, what you do, and the people you serve? What ‘attitude environment’ do you marinate in, day in and day out?

Isn’t that going to come across — somehow, someway?

Imagine what you can do to transform this, starting now. And, let’s talk; share ideas. You never know what your idea could do for someone (and vice versa).

Image by the Zanders, courtesy of Amazon.

And thanks to all who have commented on the previous post so far: Char, David Airey, Dawud Miracle

There’s a great discussion brewing over at Dave Schoof’s site, The Disquiet, about the places we go inside when life isn’t showing up the way we think it should. Namely, we blame ourselves.

I wrote an article about this a couple years ago, while living in Florida, and now that this discussion is going, it seemed perfectly timely to post it again (it’s a timeless topic, after all), with a few edits for clarity’s sake. It speaks to the feelings we have, and judge ourselves for…

The last few days in my office I had been feeling as if something was missing in my work. I took that feeling to mean that I was barking up the wrong tree, and that I should change my focus, my approach, or what I was teaching and to whom.

I assumed, given my feelings of discontent, that I was wrong about my course. “I must be making the wrong choice,” I surmised, “and I need to throw it away and find something new in order to be happy.”

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Around my house, one of those little jingles that always gets resurrected (at seemingly random moments) is from, “What’s Love Got To Do With It?”, the Tina Turner biography, starring Angela Bassett. Little Tina is singing with the church choir, and to the obvious frustration of the director, she’s inserting all kinds of spunk in between the lines of “This Little Light of Mine…”

“Jesus… (‘you know mah Lord’) Jesus… (‘he come and tell me’) I’m gonna let it shine…” (‘oh whoa whoa whoa!’)

I love thinking about little Tina, giving it all she’s got, singing for the music inside of her.

For me, that’s inspiring. When people put themselves out there, without censoring themselves because of “what will they think?” voices, or because they might appear different, I find joy in that.

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