One asks you to see , remember, awake to your part in healing the world.
The second gives you a tool to almost instantly shift your life.
Here goes:
Saving the Planet?
The world is a mess.
Either you know this, or you don’t.
We have some sort of obligation to do something about this mess.
You feel that or you don’t. If your life is trapped in just you and your work and your family, so be it. And,,,, if you get still and get present, almost everyone will feel some calling to make a difference on this planet.
Almost everyone feels this urge to make the bigger world better. It’s how native cultures were so robust : built into their very fabric was taking care of the Whole for seven generations down the line. We are caretakers. We are love, beneath all the fear and habit. We want to help/ care for/ love/ tend/ heal the Big Scene.
Either you feel that, or you don’t.
If you do feel that, and have a suspicion that the way most people want you to go about “saving the world” involves getting angry or afraid or overwhelmed, and you think, feel and know that that is bullshit, then this book is for you.
If you want to be happy and present and living in an awakened and fabulous (and very sexy, sex drenched in fact) relationship while you "save the world," then this book is for you.
And aware means, now, right? Arms and legs and breathing and gravity and light and sound.
And smiling.
Awakened lovers.
Of our fabulous partner.
Of healing the Earth.
Of healing the mess that humanity is in.
With joy and ease and delight.
And effective action.
If you want to be perfect, this book is not for you.
If you want to be present, this book is for you.
If you know that life without being present is a shadow life at best, then this book is for you.
If you want love and fun and learning and a younger and younger feeling body, then this book is for you.
Sex, Yes sex, Is good.
And should be at least three kinds: just for your partner. Just for you. The whiz bang wonder of both at the same time.
It loves to be everyday.
And if you don’t have a partner yet, if you can learn to talk to and most especially listen to others, while sensing your arms and legs and spine and breathing, you will be well on the way to amazing sex, AFTER you have found an amazing partner who wants to be present and happy and sensing themselves with you.
In this book we will hold hands and rub feet and sense ourselves as we hug and practice naked make outs. We’ll work our way up to amazing sex.
And one thing we won’t wait for is shifting our heads and hearts to the place where real love can happen.
And what is that one place?
Gratitude.
Week One, Day One: LOVE
Concept #1: The brain can be in fear or gratitude. But not both. Chose Gratitude.
Three Games to Transform your Life, anytime, anywhere
On June 20, 2015, I walked down the street on which I lived, to meet a woman I knew and admired and liked. A fine woman with whom I thought I had no “romantic” expectations. We were going to meet for a lunch and “study” session. I was writing a book on radical listening. She was smart and kind and I wanted her input. Her name was Carol Williams then.
It’s Carol Elms now.
And she isn’t the same person I met that day.
Presence and love has transformed us both.
Immensely.
And a miracle happened on that day, we found the life partner we had almost lost faith was out their for us.
One reason the miracle happened was a practice of being present that had been central to my life since 1966.
And amazing as that had been, I needed something else to boost the miracle into reality.
That something else was Gratitude.
I had a gratitude journal, in which I was writing three to five times a day.
Writing gratitudes does many things for you, and was doing them for me.
It focuses you on what you love about and appreciate about life.
By doing so, it keeps your attention on what you WANT in life, not on the complaints and Don’t Wants that so many lose their attention in.
Gratitude has been proven to help shift our brains. These wonderful brains of ours have been shown scientifically to be able to be in either gratitude or in fear.
But not both.
Repeat: our brains can be in gratitude or fear. But not both.
=
Our hearts can be in fear or gratitude. But not both.
So when I walked a half a block down to the house that is now Carol and my house, I wasn’t in fear.
I was focused on what I love and like and was grateful for in life.
I wasn’t counting on a miracle, nor was Carol, whose prayer practice included a ton of gratitude. So, expecting a miracle or not, gratitude had us both ready and able to let it unfold.
We talked about my book. She had some great ideas. I had one pretty good idea. There is a “game” in that book where you take “turns” talking.
You’ll be doing this “listening in turns” game tomorrow.
That plus gratitude plus awareness in your body now, might well be enough to create a trajectory toward find a real love for your life, or deepening whatever love you have to even more fabulous. (Or, if it’s shabby or lacking, can help it shift to vibrant and much more meaningful.)
Tomorrow you can start talking in turns.
Hopefully by page three you were committed to being aware of the present full time.
So now it’s time for the gratitude game to deeply and fully assist in connecting you to Who You Really Are.
Love Game #1: Saying gratitude aloud
Stand up. Pick a “happy and grateful spot.”
Now move, to stand in a slightly different spot. This is the “grumpy/ poor me” spot.
Think a “grumpy/ poor me” thought.
Now move back to the Real You spot.
There….
Say three gratitudes aloud.
That’s it. Nothing to wait for. Do it now.
Notice the difference.
This isn’t theory.
This is discovering: what will gratitude do for your brain/ your “real self” right now.
Right now.
Don’t put down the book.
Don’t worry if you are in the bookstore.
Wherever you are, people will smile, or want to smile if they hear you g g
“I am grateful….”
“I am grateful…”
“I am grateful…”
That wasn’t so bad, right?
And why do this?
Because you want to go out to lunch with someone and have it turn into the marriage of your life.
Or, you want to shift your momentum: since the brain can’t be in fear and gratitude at the same time, stating gratitude lifts you into the self that is the real you.
(Did you notice the shift/ dissolution of the grumpy/ poor me mind?)
Why else indulge/ partake/ pursuit/ enjoy gratitude?
You want to keep up happy momentum, since the Universe / God likes to be thanked when things go well for you.
Or, you want to point more energy from the Universe/ God unto what you love and like in life, and being grateful is one of the quickest ways to do that.
And: HAVE YOU DONE IT?
THOUGHT THE GRUMPY/ POOR ME THOUGHT?
SHIFTED TO A REAL YOU/ HAPPY AND GRATEFUL SPOT?
IN THAT SPOT, SAID ALOUD THREE GRATITUDES?
This isn’t a book to look at, read, get lost in, have some more “good ideas,” that you don’t do. Nor is it a book to get excited to give it to someone who needs it.
You need it.
I need it.
This is a book for those who wish to joyfully and almost instantly upgrade their love life, and their sex/lust life and their "get present"/enlightenment life.
Change needs change.
Change needs action.
Fun change needs fun action.
Being grateful as fun action is always available.
We all need gratitude as an almost constant dose.
Like smiling.
And happiness.
Love game #2:
Write Three Gratitudes
Sit over on the edge of your chair, and again, think some sort of “grumpy/ poor me” thoughts.
Then shift to the center of your chair, smile, take a deep breath and..
…in the “real self” center of the chair…
Write now, right now, write and finish these three sentences:
“I am grateful…”
“I am grateful…”
“I am grateful…”
Good. You did it.
That wasn’t so hard, was it?
Can you feel the difference?
Can you feel that you can’t really stay grumpy when you are in gratitude?
There are deeper and more cleansing ways to heal the sour and hurt part of our minds, but they take half an hour or so. For almost instant shifting, gratitude appears to be the quickest way to get back on track with loving life in a way that life will love you back.
Soon, you’ll get a journal. Or at least, I’d recommend this.
This will be a precious companion, I suspect.
Mine certainly is.
Almost every other day, one of my gratitudes is, “I am grateful that I have a practice of writing gratitudes in a gratitude journal.”
Writing it down is good.
For your brain.
For your soul.
For your life.
Don’t believe me.
Try it and see how it goes.
And write now, right now, even if you have no pen and no paper. Write it in the air, or on your leg with your finger.
There is something about hand writing that activates a more full part of your brain than if you type it into a computer or thumb it into a phone. Let the bigger/ more young/ more real you write out at least three gratitudes.
Why is it nice to have them on paper or in your “gratitude journal?”
You can look at them and read them again.
You have a place you are collecting your positive and thankful attention to life.
You know you have a commitment to waking up from fear and living in the wonder of life, the delight of life, the “yes” of life.
Good.
Now, stand up. Jump and wiggle a little and play Gratitude Game Number three, which includes a little bit of an enlightenment concept that could be crucial to your life, and we need to sneak it in right here.
Enlightenment Bonus Concept:
Concept #2:
SILLINESS IS NEXT TO GODLINESS
You know about kids, right? They goof around, are silly and get deliriously happy now and then.
Why not you?
Here’s one way to begin practicing BOTH SILLINESS & GRATITUDE on the same day, day one of your new adventure toward love, lust and enlightenment.
Love / Gratitude Game #3:
Pick a “poor me” spot
When there, bend down and feel all small and constricted and think the “grumpy/ poor me” thoughts.
Now, straighten up. Move to a new spot, a real/ silly/ happy/ grateful spot, and…
Wiggle,
Jiggle
Jump
Wave you hands above your head ( if an easy “do”)
Spin a bit and
Say three or more gratitudes
That’s it.
Standing is required. We sit too much in modern life.
Jumping is necessary: we need to get up off the ground.
And jumping is it’s own little anti-aging, wake up to being in a body miracle action.
Because jumping requires us to be coordinated in a quick way that very little else can.
Being silly is necessary: without humor, life is death. Silliness and humor free us almost as instantly as does gratitude.
If you can make the happy/ real you/ silly gratitude spot near a window, or outdoors, all the better.
.
Barefoot or at least in socks is better: connection to Nature is part of lust and enlightenment: your real feet like to touch the real Earth. Noticing your body in this present moment. This is our million year old heritage.
So, stand, maybe outside, maybe barefoot.
Put your arms over your head.
Wiggle your hands around.
Jump in a circle, both directions.
And while you are doing this say three or four or more gratitudes.
Then, go take a walk outside, maybe even singing about what you are grateful for.
Or skipping.
Who knows what you’ll invent with the fear gone and the joy in ascendancy. Good.
Summary of Day One:
Concept #1: We can be in gratitude, or fear. But not both
Concept #2: Silliness is next to Godliness.
Love Game #1: Say three gratitudes
Love Game #2: Write three gratitudes
Love Game #3: Jump up and down, and be silly and say/ sing three or four gratitudes
Gratitude paves the path to miracles in your life.
Start a gratitude journal.
No comments:
Post a Comment