MaXIMIze - More Questions to Consider

Certainly you didn't think the questions posted last week were the be all and end all, did you? Of course not! There are a lot of things to dig into when you are working to discover what matters, what gives your life meaning, and what you need to let go of.

Here are some more questions to ponder in this vein:

How would you describe your perfect job? What would a day in this job look like?

What kind of people would you be working with and/or for?

How would your work benefit you beyond earning a paycheck?

How would your work and you specifically doing your work benefit others?

How would you feel after a good day at work?

These questions just cover one aspect of your life, you know. The other aspects we will explore in 2014 include financial health, relationships, spirituality, physical well being, emotional well being, and your life as a whole. 

The remaining blog posts for 2013 to be on the look out for will deal with how to cope with holiday stress - managing expectations comes to mind, the reason(s) for the season beyond the materiality and consumerism, and a year-end wrap-up of the various topics covered in this blog during 2013.

In January, we will reset - 2012 was focused on letting go. 2013 added becoming. 2014 will add growing, particularly in the areas noted above.

I look forward to continued sharing in this blog - namaste!

MaXIMIze - Take Your Life in Your Arms and Kiss It!

Arthur Miller wrote a play called "After the Fall" shortly after the death of Marilyn Monroe. The play is about forgiveness, and the title of this post comes from a line that one of the characters says in the play:

"I think it is a mistake to ever look for hope outside of yourself. One day the house smells of fresh bread, and the next, smoke and blood. One day you faint because the gardener cut his finger. Within a week you're climbing over corpses of children bombed in subways. What hope can there be if that is so?

"I tried to die near the end of the war. The same dream returned to me each night until I dared not go to sleep, and I grew ill. I dreamed I had a child. And even in the dream I felt that the child was my life, and it was an idiot, and I ran away from it. But it always kept climbing into my lap, and clutching at my clothes, and I thought, if I could kiss it, whatever was in it that was my own, perhaps I could sleep again. And I bent to its broken face, and it was horrible. But I kissed it. I think, Quentin, one must finally take one's life into one's arms, and kiss it."

Wow - how powerful that is! No matter how bad you think your life is, if you can just pick it up, hold it to you, and kiss it, you can accept it as it is and watch it transform from the warty toad you think it is to the beautiful prince (or princess) that your life can be.

To work through the transformation, you need to answer this question, though - are you really what you are, or are you what you are learning and what people have told you through time you are?

To help you focus on truly answering this question, I give you another reading, this time from a book called Teaching According to Don Juan by an anthropologist named Castaneda, who studied the Yaqui Indians. In this book, there is a man called Don Juan, and this is what he says:

"Each path is only one of a million paths. Therefore you must always keep in mind that a path is only a path. If you feel that you must now follow it, you need not stay with it under any circumstances. Any path is only a path. There is no affront to yourself or others in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you to do. But your decision to keep on the path or to leave it must be free of fear and ambition. I warn you: look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself and yourself alone one question. It is this: Does this path have a heart? All paths are the same. They lead nowhere. They are paths going through the brush or into the brush or under the brush. Does this path have a heart is the only question. If it does, then the path is good. If it doesn't, it is of no use."

Wow - again, how powerful!

So I leave you with the challenge of kissing the toad that is your life (and if your life is already transformed or transforming into the prince (or princess) you are truly blessed!) and discovering if the path you are on has a heart (if it does, you will know, for it will call to you like a lover and you will not be able to resist it's pull!).

Namaste!

First Post of the New Year - Becoming

Happy New Year! Another year over, and a new one just begun. Last year what I had on my white board was the phrase "focus on - letting go." You have to let go of that which no longer serves to allow that which will in. This is an iterative process that we go through over and over and over again through many layers - for we have layers upon layers upon layers of experiences to pull out into the light, examine, take the nuggets out of for safe keeping and let the dross go.

This year the phrase is "focus on - becoming; prove the devil otherwise." You also need to focus on what it is you really want in your life and becoming the person who draws such things to you. The devil is that evil little voice inside that is full of the "you can't, you aren't good enough, you aren't enough period" type phrases, the one fueled by your insecurities and old patterns of thinking - those things you need to continue to focus on letting go of through the iterative process noted above.

As I believe I've said before, no one said this path was easy - you'll hit walls, fall into wells, tumble and tremble and want to give up many times along the way - however, it is worth it in the end. YOU are worth it in the end.

I'm going to share with you now some of the things that help me keep going, particularly at times when I feel like nothing more than a battered and broken toy not even fit for Santa to rescue from the island of misfit toys. They are the quotes I retweet on Twitter (@bethane13, if you're so inclined to find me there). These quotes lift my spirits and remind me I am not alone on my journey through this world, and I hope they do the same for you. And I give thanks to all the folks I follow on Twitter for sharing these with me and others.

Where the heart is willing, it will find a hundred ways. Where it is unwilling, it will find a hundred excuses. - Arlen Price

Don't be afraid if people leave, be afraid of not being yourself to please someone else. Be authentically you no matter what. - Mastin Kipp (The Daily Love)

Most human beings have an infinite capacity for taking things for granted. - Aldous Huxley

The 3 C's of life = Choices, Chances, Changes. - Dr. Marion Ross (shiftyourlife.com)

Our wounds are often openings into the best part of us. - Dr. Marion Ross (shiftyourlife.com)

Free yourself from fear, guilt and regret. The past exists only in your mind, your future also. Let go. Forgive. - Valacier

The way to change others' minds is with affection, and not anger. - Dalai Lama XIV

One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus. - Tony Robbins

If beating yourself up worked, you'd be thin, rich and happy. Try loving yourself instead. :) - @coachoncall

Losing an illusion makes you wiser than finding a truth. - Ludwig Boerne

Watch your language; by altering a few words we can create different results.  - Lopez (@Lopez_nlp) This one was a reaction to a saying on a Starbucks cup - The Way I See It #283 - The most important thing in life is to stop saying "I wish" and start saying "I will." Consider nothing impossible then treat possibilities as probabilities.

There are many more of these that I have shared over the time I've been on Twitter, and I may share more of them here in future blogs.

Until then, I bid you Namaste!